Fai's Moving Castle
by twicebornbacchus
Summary: As requested on ClampKink! Howl's Moving Castle retold with the cast of Tsubasa and adapted for AU canon. KuroFai - because who else would make a good Howl? Enjoy! COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

**The longest author note I will ever write: **This was a ton of fun, but difficult in many ways. Superficially, the story grafted well, but because Miyazaki's adaptation differs so wildly from the book, I had to clean up some of the disparate elements of the film in order to make the narrative smoother. In the novel, Howl is cursed to never be able to fall in love (as he has traded away his heart), a plot point that never quite made it into the film and was replaced, instead, by him changing into the flying beast-creature (an element nowhere in the novel). As the Tsubasa characters suffer from any number of curses to choose from and (most) go through some form of bodily transformation, this allowed me to work backwards, plot-wise, to restructure this story: who would be the final traveling group at the end of the movie (the Tsubasa crew) and, so, how would I get there? In the novel, there is no war, and the Witch of the Waste is the main antagonist – in the movie, she becomes a member of the household (!). Well, _hello _Sakura! But this meant that certain elements needed to be readjusted to match the characters, because rather than go the lazy route of using the plot points from the movie – Howl is missing his heart, Sophie is transformed into an old woman – I wanted to use the Tsubasa details to bring this all together, so this became a musical chairs game of plot points (can you _really _see Kurogane working in a _hat _shop? I couldn't). I also incorporated a detail or two from the novel as it suited me. One thing worth noting: Yes, I changed the castle – but hey, Miyazaki did, too! It was originally a medieval-esque castle with four turrets. New owner, new castle! Again, I wanted to make this as much a Tsubasa centered fan fiction as possible. Now then, I hope this long-winded explanation provides some insight into how this all unfolds! The story will be presented in four parts (each part follows a half hour of the movie). Please enjoy!

**Part 1: **

The country of Ingary was on the brink of war.

Kurogane glanced out the window; the second floor of the weapons shop was high enough to provide a clear view of the train as it rolled by. Black smoke, thick and sooty, billowed into the air as it moved through the city, snaking away into the distance. It moved onward, carrying people or supplies or cargo or bombs – or, well, anything, really. The trains came through five or six times a day, polluting the otherwise clear sky with their muck.

He turned back down to his work, checking the balance of the sword he held by suspending it on two fingers; it remained parallel to the floor, the blade still. The weight was perfect, another flawless creation, and he grinned a little with satisfaction at his skill.

He was in a good mood when he decided to go for a walk and visit his little sister across town; Tomoyo ran a wildly successful dress shop, but while she might have been busy all week, he felt certain that she could spare him some time today. As he slipped out into the cobblestone alley, the buzz of airships above him drew his attention: another military display for the occasion…

The roar of the parade, with its cheery townsfolk and clamorous brass instruments all stirring up a racket, drove him deeper into the backways of the city. He snorted in derision; he could picture it all in his mind. People would crowd together in their finest livery, shouting and cheering as men in glorified costumes high-stepped down the street, holding their guns smartly against their shoulders. Tanks would roll past, and later, the people would dance in the street as airships, their bellies full of bombs, soared above them.

They made war look so pretty and _fun. _Kurogane worked at the weapons shop with pride and diligence – a sword was an accessory, a _part _of you. You couldn't avoid the person you were killing with a sword, no…you had to get right up to them, look them in their eyes, and _think, _really _think _about what you were doing. Bombs and guns and tanks didn't make you do that; you could hide behind all of those, he thought. He shoved his hands into his pockets furiously. While weapons sales had soared elsewhere, the shop he worked at had been reduced to a sort of novelty vendor. Modern warfare was all the rage.

He was in a particularly black mood when he found his path blocked by two soldiers.

"Hey there, civilian – shouldn't you be at the parade?"

He stopped, his red eyes sweeping over them. They were probably good people – decent, at the very least, but bored, forced to remain on duty while the other troops were allowed to celebrate. The tall one, a broad-shouldered, stocky man, wore a nameplate that read "Kusangi." His companion, much shorter and younger, had eyes that flashed with the haste of youth above a nameplate of "Ryū-ō."

"Don't care for parades," he grunted. The young one took a step forward, a grin splitting up into a smile.

"Why's that?"

"Don't like the people there." Kurogane's eyes narrowed, sweeping over their uniforms to make his point.

Kusanagi rocked back on his heels, flexing his forearms nonchalantly. "Well, now, that's not very polite."

Kurogane's blood quickened; _here _was the perfect outlet for his bad mood. Even without a sword, he could move faster than the two of them, he was sure – a good scrapping in a back alley, with no one to interrupt them, was _just _what he needed to let out a little steam. He stepped forward, two curled fists slipping out of his pocket, grinning and ready to throw the first punch –

A slender arm slid through his, looping itself through like a chaperone's. The soldiers, who had stepped forward eager to fight, now stopped, staring.

"_There _you are! Sorry I'm late – where have you _been?_"

Kurogane looked down, the hair on the back of his neck rising.

To suggest that the stranger was outlandishly dressed was to insult the idea of _outlandish _itself. While Kurogane only wore black jeans and a black, button-down shirt, the man wore a long, trailing cloak of stunning, robin's egg blue. White patterns, like the design of some exotic snowflake, splashed down across the back, and the whole thing was rimmed in soft, fluffy white fur. The man looked up at him, a wide, dazzling smile underneath two matching blue eyes, his long, blonde bangs nearly obscuring his view.

"Who the hell are you?"

The strange man's expression broke into mock shock. "Is that any way to treat your boyfriend? Come along, now – sorry to have bothered you both!"

Kurogane's face reddened as the soldiers glanced at one another, unsure of what to say, and quickly stepped out of their way. He tried to fumble for words as the man actually _led _him forward, dragging him down the alley.

"What the…who the hell _are_ you?" He yanked his arm away, snarling. "And why are you touching me?"

"I _was _going to be your escort – I saved you!"

"_Saved _me?"

"You were about to get into a fight," the blonde man said. He raised his hands, shrugging, and two long, fur-rimmed sleeves fell away. "Nobody likes fights."

"_I _like fights," he snapped. "I didn't need you to save me."

"You might need me to now, though."

"Huh?"

The man pointed over his shoulder.

_Where _all the men had come from, he couldn't guess – the sheer number of them were staggering, men in all black uniforms, sharp knives protruding from their hand guards. Stranger yet, their uniforms weren't like anything he had ever seen before, and their helmets completely covered their faces – maybe they weren't even human underneath.

He snapped his head back around, demanding an explanation, and stopped short. More of them were appearing out of thin air, right in front of them – and now the sides, too, too fast for him to process –

A hand suddenly gripped his arm, and the blonde man leaped with him into the air.

Kurogane's stomach dropped into the soles of shoes as the ground rushed away below him, as if he had been shot out of a canon.

"No need to look so alarmed – just walk with me!"

"W-walk!" His mind wasn't playing tricks on him; he was in the air now for sure, and his legs were peddling uselessly in the vacuum as the city stretched below him. He could see the parade below him, the people out in the streets, eating, dancing, talking, never looking up at the two men who walked in the air above them. Kurogane swallowed thickly and glanced at the man still holding onto his arm; the blond smiled dreamily, as if lost in his own world, the coat stretching behind him in the wind like the wings of a blue swallow. The breeze lifted his bangs out of the way of his face, and two blue sapphires turned to Kurogane, smiling.

"Here we are!"

The balcony came into view; Kurogane landed on it and felt the joy of solid ground beneath his feet.

"Sorry to have gotten you involved like that." The man was perched on the railing, two long, thin arms stretching down in front of him. "Do try and stay out of trouble from now on, will you?"

And with that, he leapt backwards into the air.

"You idiot, _wait!" _

Kurogane gripped the edge of the balcony, searching, but it was no use – the man was gone.

* * *

Tomoyo sat patiently in her workshop, richly colored fabrics piled around her.

"I'm sorry, Kurogane…you're going to have to explain to me how you got up on the balcony again."

Kurogane had explained twice already, but he did it again anyways, eager for her to believe him. She nodded, listening, and when he was through, she asked, "How did he know you were coming here?"

"He didn't. It was just a coincidence."

"Oh, I don't know…I've heard there's no such thing as coincidence." She picked at the thimble on her thumb, her eyes lighting up. "Oh, I know! I'll bet he was a wizard."

"A wizard?"

"You know, a magician – a practitioner of magic. _Oh!_" Her gasp startled him. She had leapt up, and standing at her full height, their gaze was level as he sat. "I'll bet…yes…I'm certain of it…you met the Wizard Fai!"

"Who?"

"Wizard Fai! He has blonde hair and blue eyes, just like you described, and he's been sighted around here before. Evidently, he's a bit of a playboy." She laughed a little as Kurogane squirmed. "They say that he's cursed."

He crossed his arms over his chest, annoyed. "I don't believe in curses."

Tomoyo's eyes sparkled. "What about magic?"

The rushing sensation of weightlessness came back to him, and the strange, bright blue eyes beneath that wide smile appeared in his mind. If anyone was capable of magic, it would be someone like that…

"What kind of curse?" He tried not to sound very interested. Tomoyo smiled.

"Some people say that he's a beast in disguise who feeds on the blood of virgins!"

"…You're kidding."

"Only about the virgins part." She winked.

He would have liked to have sat in thought for a little longer, but the door to Tomoyo's workroom flew open. Her associate informed her that women were coming in, the hems of their dresses ripped to tatters from dancing in the street, hoping for a quick fix before the evening ball. Work was getting backed up.

"Be careful, Kurogane," she said as he made to go. A delicate hand grasped his, soft and insistent. "Those things I said about the Wizard Fai…it's just silly nonsense, but I've heard other things. People are saying the Witch of the Waste is back on the prowl…"

"Tomoyo." He lifted her hand away and gave her a rare, quick smile. All of this talk about witches and wizards was childish. "I'll be fine. Get back to your work."

As he walked, his eyes furtively searching the skies, he didn't notice the slit that opened up in the air far behind him, or the black figures that slipped back inside.

* * *

He caught the train the remaining distance back to the shop, thinking that the noise and the crowd would work together to alleviate his thoughts, but it hadn't worked. Night had fallen, and by the time he walked into the first floor display room of the shop, locking the door behind him, he was mentally exhausted.

The lamp flared to life, casting a warm glow around the shop, sparkling on the edge of the blades. The pride he had felt earlier in the day was gone, replaced by a sudden dissatisfaction and a new restlessness, and once again, he remembered the rush of wind through this hair, saw the city below him –

The door opened.

Kurogane looked up quickly, frowning.

A young girl stood in the doorway, her green eyes wide and vacant. Black lace crept up her throat, sinking down into a black dress that flowed out behind her like a pool of shadows. Her short, auburn hair framed a pretty face, but there was something cold and terrible about her gaze that unsettled him.

"We're closed."

Her green eyes moved slowly to the knives and swords on the walls. "Toys," she said, her voice quiet. "Toys for children."

His fists curled. Nobody insulted his work. He walked to the front door, held it open, and jerked his head out toward the night. "I wouldn't sell anything to a kid like you anyways. Get out."

"You're very brave..." Her eyes, empty, found his, but her tone was sincere. "…taking on the Witch of the Waste."

A sound drew his attention away, the sound of knives being scraped against metal. He turned, and the men, armored and dangerous, were standing in the doorway, their steely weaponry aimed at his chest.

Kurogane whirled around, too late. White, glowing wings stretched out behind the girl – _the witch! _he thought – and she rushed forward, somehow through and past him. A pain exploded in his chest; he dropped to his knees, gasping.

She turned, frozen in the doorway, glowing with a terrifying beauty. "Only you can see the curse. It will grow a little bigger, every day, until it covers your whole body…and then you will die. You may not speak of it to anyone, either – no one will know the truth of your fate. And…" She paused, and those glowing wings stretched behind her, pulling her away. "Give my regards to Wizard Fai."

And with that, the door slammed shut.

It was a few minutes before Kurogane could catch his breath and stand. Nothing _felt _different…had he imagined the whole thing? An indulgent thought came to him – maybe _none _of it had happened, the morning encounter with the wizard, this sudden visit from a witch…it was all too much. No, he had slept the whole day, and come downstairs just now to…

He walked doggedly up the stairs, shaking away the thoughts. He had never run from reality before; he wouldn't start now.

He approached the mirror in his room and felt his heart speed up a little; what would he see? _Only you can see the curse…it will grow a little bigger, every day… _He turned the lamp on in the room and stared, trying to make sense of what he saw.

The thing couldn't be touched; he raised a hand to his chest, feeling the air where he could see it, but nothing answered his senses, yet still, there in the mirror, it was reflected with perfect clarity: a small pair of black, full wings, their feathers like knives, spread in flight across his chest. Right now the symbol left a good two inches on either side of his chest, but the witch said the curse would grow to cover him completely, and then…

His mind was oddly calm; death was an eventuality of all living things, after all. He didn't have to accept it; he could choose to fight it, but for now…he collapsed down onto his bed and let shock sweep over him. For now, he would try and rest.

* * *

He awoke to the racket that Souma was causing downstairs; even though she owned the shop, she was constantly traveling. _She picked a hell of a day to come home, _he thought. Maybe in some other world she had been a skilled, silent warrior, but now, Kurogane groaned as she stomped up the stairs.

"Kurogane, you were supposed to have the shop open an _hour _ago! Get _up!_"

"Sick," he called.

"You don't sound sick – you sound _lazy!_"

He stood up furiously and stormed to the door, glancing at himself in the mirror.

The dark wings were still there.

"_Quit_," he snapped, throwing the door open. "I meant, I _quit_."

"You – you quit?" Souma's anger disappeared, her dark, liquid eyes narrowing in confusion. "But you love it here. You can't…you can't just quit."

"I'm quitting and leaving. I have some business to attend to."

"But – where? Don't you need to pack?"

"I'll grab some food on the way out. Don't come looking for me, and don't…" He paused long enough to meet her troubled gaze. "Don't tell Tomoyo."

She studied him carefully. "Something's wrong."

Wordlessly, he made his way to the kitchen, packed some bread and cheese, and flung his long, black traveling cloak over his shoulders.

The last thing he heard was the sound of men, huddled together reading the newspaper.

"They're saying this war is going to be terrible…"

_I wonder if I'll live long enough to see it, _he thought.

* * *

The land that stretched away from Ingary had been aptly named "the Waste." It was a blustery, cold place of rocky terrain and sparse vegetation. He'd caught a ride on a hay cart out of the city's gates; the driver had looked at him as though he had lost his mind.

Well, maybe he had.

"Nothing but witches and wizards out there!" The driver had called when he disembarked, setting out on foot into the waste. So much of the day had passed already, and still Ingary loomed, close and large, just a few miles away. He walked for hours, watching the sun move across the sky, without any inkling of direction or plan. He needed to find the Witch of the Waste, that much was certain, and get her to reverse the curse. _How _he would accomplish that, he wasn't sure yet, but he would come up with a plan when he found her.

_If _he found her.

Kurogane sat down on a pile of particularly uncomfortable rocks, drawing out the bread and cheese he had scooped up from the kitchen. His thoughts turned to Souma's eyes; she had looked at him, just as he left, and sensed that something important, something bigger than her, was happening to him, and in her moment of understanding, had let him go. Would she do as he asked and not tell Tomoyo? That was all that mattered. _Tell her I've gone on a vacation, or something. _A vacation – right. He'd never taken one before. Well, maybe that made it more plausible, then. He'd gone on a vacation, with no extra clothes, little foods, no weapons –

"_Shit!_" His voice echoed in the waste. He worked at a _weapons _shop, and he'd forgotten to grab a sword before he'd headed out into the wilderness. Cursing himself, he rose, glancing around. Rocks greeted him; he could bash someone's head in with a rock if it came to it, but…

A tangled mess of briars stood up a ways on the hill, a stick poking out of it. A good stick could be just as valuable as a sword. He climbed up to it, grasped it by the base, and with a solid yank, heaved it out.

The stick stared at him.

He dropped it and scrambled back, eyes wide.

It was the strangest scarecrow he'd ever seen…not just because it stood up _on its own, _or that it was bouncing in was what unmistakably joy, but because it's head appeared to be an oversized turnip, with a wide, happy grin. It wore a black, tattered jacket and matching top hat with a blue-bowtie. For some reason that he couldn't place, the thing reminded him of the wizard he had met, with the same wide, happy smile…

The stick bounced toward him.

"_Get the hell away from me!_"

It stopped, hopped in place, and spun around. Kurogane scrambled back down the hill and headed into the waste, his legs striding with a renewed sense of urgency.

_Plunk._

_ Plunk._

He felt his blood turn cold; he glanced over his shoulder, and sure enough, the scarecrow bounded after him, like a puppy following after its owner.

"I've had enough of witches and wizards!" He snapped at it. "Leave me alone!"

He thought he managed to get rid of it; an hour later, the sky darkening with nightfall, he could see it _plunking _along in the distance, approaching again. He resolved to set it on fire just as it came close enough for him to discern that it was carrying, of all things, a sword, stretched across its thin arms.

The scarecrow dropped the sword in front of him and began hopping down, waiting for praise.

Kurogane eyed it suspiciously; the sword was strong, if a little weather-bent and in need of a good polish. It appeared to have been lost by someone in the waste, or perhaps discarded intentionally. Either way, its blade, shining blue with a thin, sure edge, was still sharp. He picked it up and stared at the scarecrow with a new sense of appreciation.

"Thanks," he muttered.

It spun around, delighted.

"While you're at it, how about bringing me a house to sleep in?"

It paused, gave a short hop, and headed off again. Kurogane grinned, watching it disappear; he was grateful for the sword, but not eager for the thing's company. He was confident he had gotten rid of it for good.

The night came on with a rush of dark, thick clouds and furious winds. His cloak whipped around him as he walked onward, heedless of anything except his own mission: find the witch. She was out there, somewhere – she _had _to be, and if she wasn't, that didn't matter: he would find her, no matter how far he had to search, and when he did –

The smell of smoke, like the scent of an acrid chimney, reached him. He paused, his brow knitting. There shouldn't be any smoke, not out here in the waste…

Kurogane turned around, his stomach sinking with dread.

It felt like it took a long time to understand what he was seeing, but really, only seconds had passed. There was a castle…and it was moving.

He blinked rapidly, his heart stopping. _There was a castle moving toward him._

And the damn scarecrow hopped in front of it, thrilled.

It was a glittering, dazzling sight – it looked as though gossamer dragon wings arched up and around it, like a protective cocoon, and twinkled with the soft blues and purples and greens of an aurora. Its feet, like the claws of a dragon, plodded along, moving slowly over the hillside until it was nearly upon him, dwarfing him in its immensity.

The scarecrow leapt up and down next to him, pleased with itself.

"This isn't what I meant!" He barked at it. It stopped hopping, deflated.

The castle paused; a tiny staircase extended to the ground, leading up to a backdoor. Kurogane stared at it, wondering if he had finally lost his mind completely, and the castle, deciding that he didn't want a ride after all, began moving again.

Kurogane took off at a run for it; the castle itself didn't take big steps, but now that it had decided to be on its way, it was _moving. _The wind finally ripped the cloak from his shoulders and he ran, full out, grabbing the end of the staircase.

He found his footing and turned, peering through the gathering darkness. The scarecrow was hurrying along excitedly, the cloak caught in his arms, eager to return it. Kurogane reached out and grabbed it, half wanting to pull the thing up with him into the castle – it had done so much for him, after all…but the scarecrow could no longer keep up with the pace of the castle. It fell behind and out of his reach.

"May you find happiness," he said, quiet, and hoped the wind carried his words along.

* * *

Kurogane crept up the stairs quietly, following the scent he had smelt earlier: smoke. He found himself in a small, squalid room, completely unlike the outside of the castle. The exterior was a beautiful, polished world of colors and hues…the inside was a _mess. _He had heard that homes reflected their owners; he hoped that was just an old wive's tale. Cobwebs clustered in dusty heaps in the corners; shelves, tacked up onto the walls, were bursting with papers and books that had dislodged themselves, falling down into untidy heaps. A large, all-purpose table was just visible over the mess that covered it – everything from junk to unwashed plates and more books.

A large fireplace sat in the middle of the room, where a small, dwindling fire was trapped in the largest collection of ashes Kurogane had ever seen. A chair was placed in front of it, the only clean thing in the room. Wearily, he sat down in it, tossed his cloak and sword on the floor, and grabbed a few logs near the hearth, tossing them onto the fire.

So he had gone from meeting a wizard to being cursed by a witch to finding a living scarecrow and taking up residence in a moving castle.

"Nothing surprises me anymore," he sighed.

He stared at the fire, his eyes growing heavy. It glowed a little brighter, it seemed, like a tiny, red, pulsing jewel…

"That's some spell you're under!"

"Eh?" He opened his eyes, alert. _Did the fire just talk to me…?_

No, _not _the fire - a strange creature was digging itself out of the ashes, shaking them off, and puffing up with the indignity of it all. It looked close to a rabbit, with long, white ears, a little red jewel in the middle of its forehead. It hopped over the humble fire and came to rest on the edge of the hearth. Kurogane sat up and stared at it, wide-eyed; even after everything that had happened, he was wrong: he still found it in himself to be surprised yet again.

"It won't be easy to break," the creature continued, nodding thoughtfully to itself. "And you can't even tell anyone about it."

"You….how do you know? Are you the Wizard Fai?" He felt stupid, asking it, but if it _was, _maybe it could help him.

"No!" It hopped up into his lap, covering his black pants with soot. "Mokona is Mokona!"

Oddly enough, that made the most sense to him out of everything that had happened in the last two days.

"I could help you, you know!"

"You could get _off _me," he growled.

Mokona hopped back to the hearth and proceeded to warm itself by the fire. "I _could_, though," it said. "I could break your curse, but you would have to do something for me in return. It would have to be _equal._"

He folded his arms across his chest and tried to size the creature up; if it was lying, what did he have to lose? Not much, at this point. And if it _wasn't _lying…

"What would I have to do?"

"This is the Wizard Fai's castle," it said. Kurogane felt his stomach turn over; he was growing increasingly uneasy with magic, and even though he had briefly wondered if the creature was the real wizard, still, he hadn't thought he would actually see_ him_ again. Or end up in his castle. _Maybe it's not the same person – you didn't even get that creep's name. It's probably not him…_

"Are you listening?"

"Yea," he lied. "Go on."

"Mokona is stuck here by contract with Fai, traveling with him." It pouted, and its ears fell flat to the ground, sorrowful. "He works Mokona to death! Mokona is the one who keeps this castle moving! But, like you, Mokona can't say what the contract is."

It looked so pathetic; Kurogane reached out and picked it up by its round head, plopping it back down in his lap. "And?"

"If someone _else_ can figure out what our contract is, then our deal is over!"

"Uh-huh."

"And if _you're _that someone, and you do that for Mokona so that Mokona can go, Mokona promises to break your curse!"

"I'll think about it." Kurogane kicked his legs up on the edge of the hearth and leaned back, preparing for sleep. The creature stared up at him quizzically, hopped off, and buried back into the ashes, eager for warmth.

* * *

A pounding at the door woke him. Kurogane's eyes opened a slit, then closed; footsteps echoed from a staircase on the other side of the hearth.

A boy with messy brown hair and matching eyes came running down. Kurogane closed his eyes and remained still, feigning sleep.

"Hey, Mokona…who is this?"

"Mokona doesn't know," the rabbit-thing replied.

The pounding at the door continued.

"It's Piffle, Syaoran!"

"Thanks, Mokona."

Kurogane opened his eyes a little again; the boy waved a hand over his eyes, which promptly turned from brown to blue. Above the same door he had come through, a multi-colored wheel spun from _green _to _red. _

Syaoran pulled open the door, throwing sunlight into the squalid room. Three young men stood in the doorway of similar height and build. They inclined their heads respectfully and presented a letter to the boy.

"Is Master Fye at home?"

"No, I'm sorry." Syaoran took the envelope and inclined his head in turn. One of the youths, blue-haired and polite, nodded back. "Please give him that invitation from his majesty. It has come to war…every wizard is expected to report to protect the homeland."

They exchanged cordial good-byes; the boy dragged himself back up the stairs, huffing, and set the letter down on the banister.

_No sense pretending… _Kurogane opened his eyes; they stared at each other for a moment in the silence before the boy asked, in a tone that suggested he didn't quite believe anyone was actually sitting in front of him, "Who _are_ you?"

"Kurogane."

"Kurogane…" Syaoran repeated, blinking at him. "And…how did you get in here?"

"Mokona let me in. I was in the waste."

"Mokona did _not _let him in!" Kurogane decided that the rabbit was a she, although it was hard to be certain. She jumped up into his lap. "He came in all on his own – oh!" A knocking came again at the door. "Piffle again! A customer!"

Syaoran turned and scrambled back down the steps. When he opened the door, a little Chinese girl stood, her hands bunched up in her skirts.

"What do you need?"

A shy voiced answered. "My mom sent me."

Kurogane watched as Syaoran led the girl up, into the room. He looked past them, amazed – _Piffle? _But Piffle was so far away…there was no way they had managed to move from the waste to Piffle in a single evening. The smell of the ocean, salty and strong, blew in on a breeze.

Kurogane backed away from the door, moving around to the window near the catch-all table. Now, he could see the dazzling city clearly, see the market with its people –

"Here you are, Chun Hyang…give this to your mother."

Kurogane turned, eager to have a word with the boy, and found the little girl staring up at him, her dark eyes wide with admiration.

"Are you a wizard?"

"The _worst _kind," he muttered. She gave a start and scurried back down the stairs, the door shutting behind her.

Kurogane turned back to the boy; he was in the process of changing his eye color back, and the result was one blue and one brown eye, eerie and unsettling. "You should drop that disguise – it's creepy."

"It's not a disguise!" He stopped, surprised at himself for shouting. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "It's magic."

Another knocking came at the door. Mokona leapt back up on top of the hearth.

"Syaoran, it's Hanshin this time!"

The boy gave a harassed shake of his head and went back down the stairs; the little wheel turned to blue. A smartly dressed man with short, cropped black hair stood, a letter in his hand.

"Sorata, reporting – is the Wizard Fay at home?"

"No, I'm sorry."

"Ah." He scratched his head, shrugged, and shoved the letter into Syaoran's hands. "Please give that to him. He's required at the Palace."

Kurogane pushed past Syaoran as the door, peering out after the man had gone. Hanshin – that was even farther away than Piffle! And they were right in the middle of it, too… Tentatively, he stepped outside, peering up at the doorway he had just stepped from. Where the magnificent castle had been, now stood only a small office building on the edge of a busy sidewalk, the only remarkable thing about it a small sign that said "Wizard Fay" in flowery blue handwriting.

Kurogane opened the door back up and stepped inside; he had decided that magic was an evil, complicated thing.

"You should be careful if you're going to wander around," Syaoran warned. "You could get locked out." He pointed at a little knob down below the colored wheel.

Kurogane stared at it for a half a moment and then, deciding that things couldn't get any worse, grabbed it.

"Hey! Be careful with that!"

He turned it to the green; the light inside changed to a dark, melancholy gray. The door opened, and the waste – cold, dead, and windy – stretched below him once more. Moreover, leaning out, now he could see the feet of the actual castle where it had finally stopped for the night.

His head tried to make sense of it all; so the castle itself was parked, physically, in the waste…and wherever the color matched up on the spinning wheel that controlled the door determined where that door opened up to. Now it made sense: if he had stepped out of the castle in Hanshin, and meanwhile, inside, Syaoran had changed the color on the door knob, he would have walked inside to an empty office building. Green led to the waste, near Ingary, red to Piffle, near the coast, and blue to Hanshin…he glanced up at the color wheel.

"Where does the black one go?"

"Only Master Fai knows," Syaoran said. He moved over to the cluttered table and began fishing around for some scrapings of food for breakfast. He managed to dig out a loaf of bread when Kurogane approached, eyeing him disdainfully: a perfectly good, covered platter of bacon lay half covered under a pile of old, yellowed papers. If the kid hadn't kicked him out yet (and neither had the rabbit-thing), he figured he might as well make himself comfortable.

"How about I make us some bacon and eggs?"

Syaoran shook his head. "Mokona controls everything in the castle, and only Master Fai has a contract with Mokona…"

"That so?" He yanked out the dish and went over to the fire, tossing more logs in.

"Hey!" Mokona hopped out of the hearth, puffing up. Her ears flayed up with annoyance. "You have to ask Mokona for permission first!"

"Why?"

"Because Mokona keeps the castle moving!"

"So?"

They stared at each other, their gazes locked. The tiny creature quaked. "_So_," she complained, "When Mokona puffs up _real, real big _– like this…" She sucked in a tremendous amount of air, far too much for such a small body (and where it went, Kurogane could only guess), and then exhaled it, _whooshing _toward the fire. The powerful oxygen flow set the flames roaring, sending heat crackling up the chimney, and now he could hear the soft exhale of steam above. "So you see," she continued, hopping about excitedly, "Mokona uses the fire to keep everything going. So you can't use it!"

He leaned down, his voice low. A devilish grin spread across his face; the rabbit-thing looked up at him, tugging down at her ears in fright. "But that's only a small part of it, isn't it?" He asked. "Just because you're a good substitute for a bellows doesn't mean that that's what you _really _do, is it?" He shoved the frying pan over the fire defiantly, satisfied with her gasp of outrage. "And you'll let me use the fire to make some breakfast, or I'll tell Fai about our deal."

Mokona lowered her voice to conspirator levels. "So, we have a deal?"

"Maybe."

She hopped down to the floor, furious. "Mokona does not like you. Not very much."

"Do something useful and get me a teapot," he snapped. The bacon began to spit at him in the pan, the fat liquefying as the edges began to curl up.

Over the crackling of the bacon, a _whir _sounded behind him, the noise of the door color changing, and now the room was plunged momentarily into full dark. Without turning around, Kurogane knew, from the heavy feeling in his stomach, that the doorknob had turned to black.

Another second and the light had returned to normal, the door had shut, and Syaoran was saying, "You have letters for Wizard Fye and Fay…"

Kurogane turned, his throat tightening.

A man with long, blonde bangs was dragging himself up the stairs, right toward Kurogane, a familiar blue coat trailing in his wake.


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 2: **

Kurogane didn't look up; he kept his grip on the pan and shook it over the fire, the bacon crackling now. Each step came closer, quiet and slow, and then he could _feel _the wizard's presence next to him, standing right by his side. There was no question now: this was definitely the same man from before.

"Mokona…you're being helpful today." The man spoke in a voice that Kurogane remembered well: light, musical.

The creature hopped up, angry. "He bullied Mokona!"

"No, I don't believe it…" There was something teasing and coy about his voice. Kurogane could feel the man's gaze shift to him, and, like magic, his own eyes were drawn to meet his. He stared at the pleasant smile, frozen to the spot. "And who, exactly, are _you_?"

The spell broke; Kurogane tensed and thought about hitting him with the frying pan, hot bacon grease and all. "You don't remember me?"

"Remember you?" The wizard grew thoughtful; a quick hand moved up and brushed his bangs away, fingertips curling under his chin. "Hm. No, can't say that I do!"

"Two days ago we were being chased by some guys in black armor, and you grabbed my arm and we went…flying….into the air," he finished. It didn't matter that he was inside a moving castle, speaking to a wizard; it still sounded like a dumb thing to say.

The wizard Fai looked at him, almost apologetically, and shrugged. "Sorry, not ringing a bell. I grab a lot of young men off the street, if you know what I mean. It's sort of a bad habit of mine, actually."

Kurogane's grip on the pan tightened; he had moved from thinking about hitting the wizard with the pan to forcibly restraining himself from doing it. "Yea, well, get used to me – I'm staying."

Blue eyes widened in surprise. "You're…staying? In _my_ castle?"

"S'right."

"_Why_?"

_Because I need to break your contract with your pet-rabbit so it can save my life_, he thought. The curse prevented him from saying his thoughts, which was just as well; the wizard would have kicked him out if he knew the truth. Kurogane opened his mouth, blurting out the first thing that came to him. "This place is disgusting. I'm here to clean it."

"Oh." Fai stared at him, unsure of what to say, and finally broke into a smile. "Well, in that case…here, give me that."

Fai brushed up against him, the soft fur of his coat ghosting across Kurogane's arm. Light, quick fingers moved over his own, slipping down around the frying pan's handle. The tiny moment of contact sent a shock through him; Kurogane let go and stepped aside quickly, wondering if the wizard had intended to be so casually…._intimate. _

"Pass me two more bacon slices…and grab at least six eggs from over there."

Kurogane did as he was told in silence, watching the wizard. He was young – maybe close to his age, or maybe it was all magic, and he was much older – but he could tell, judging from the way his cloak hung around him, that a svelte, thin body was hidden under what appeared to be multiple layers of clothing. His hair was the soft blonde of a canary's down; Kurogane paused, inclining his head. That wasn't the first time the magician had reminded him of some bird – maybe it was the way he had leapt into the air and flown, actually _flown…_or maybe it was just him, with his long, thin legs, currently standing on tip toe to keep the pan as far into the fire as possible so that the grease didn't splatter onto his ornate clothes.

"Here, Mokona!" Fai turned, ignoring Kurogane completely, and tossed the eggshells at Mokona.

Her mouth opened, sucking in air, and they were gone.

Kurogane stared at it openly. "What the hell _is _that thing?"

"So," Fai said, his eyes trained back on the fire. "Who hired you to clean my castle?"

"_I _hired me." Kurogane snorted. "Who's gonna fire me? You?" For a brief moment, he reflected that this was the strangest job interview of his life.

Fai shrugged.

"This place is filthy," he went on, scowling. He crossed his arms over his chest in distaste. "It's not like your rabbit can clean it."

"_See, _he _does _bully Mokona!" Mokona leapt onto Fai's head, peering down into his eyes.

Fai ignored his new accessory and, once again turning to face Kurogane without ever looking at him, held out the pan of food. "Syaoran – plates!"

"Kurogane," Syaoran called. "You can sit over here."

Kurogane felt it again, like another bolt of electricity; Fai's eyes had flicked to him for just a moment, filing away his name.

Fai walked over to the table; with one hand he balanced the frying pan, and with the other he began stacking up books, clearing a little place for himself. Syaoran had set the plates out, and the three of them sat, the wizard dishing out the bacon and eggs. Kurogane looked down at the table in disgust; he wasn't exaggerating when he said the place was filthy. Crumbs and bits of dust and who knew what lay scattered among the hardwood grains. He was a meticulous person: his profession demanded cleanliness and precision, and these traits had flowed into the rest of his life. His room was always clean, his bed always made, his clothes pressed and clean. Peace and tranquility, he believed, could be found in order. Just sitting in the castle would drive him crazy; he resolved to be true to his word and clean the damn place after breakfast. _I've got my work cut out for me, _he thought, glancing around at the mess.

"Here you go…everything else is dirty, so…" Syaoran held up a handful of soiled silverware. Cringing, he selected the one he thought he could at least polish clean on his shirt.

Fai had procured a loaf of bread from the many food wares on the table and began cutting it, serving it to the two of them.

"This is exciting," Syaoran said. He smiled a little, and Kurogane watched his face carefully, judging him to be a serious boy. "We haven't had a proper breakfast in a long while."

Syaoran began to eat, but Kurogane could feel the skin on the back of his neck prickling. The bacon smelled inviting, and the whites of the eggs had curled up with the slight brown around their edges of the melted fat, promising flavor and goodness…but he could feel eyes staring at him again and felt as though they were looking through him, right to his very core.

_"What?" _Kurogane glanced up to find the wizard's eyes on him, just as he knew they would be.

Fai smiled. "Oh, I was just wondering…what's that in your pocket?"

"My pocket?" Kurogane glanced down; he was wearing the same dark jeans for two days now, but he didn't put anything in the pockets. He reached down slowly, half expecting a viper to strike out at him, and felt a small piece of paper lodged in there. Red eyes narrowed as he drew it out.

"Is this some sort of trick…?" He glared at the wizard distrustfully, but Fai only smiled wide.

"Please, allow me." Once again, light fingers touched his own, pulling the paper from his hand, and all of a sudden, Kurogane understood that it wasn't _magic _that Fai was using on him: it was just _him, _and with a sickening, dreadful lurch, he realized that the wizard wasn't casting any spells – he was just making him _flustered _like some idiot schoolboy.

The realization came and went with the sound of a heated crackling, like a small firecracker exploding. Between them, the paper ignited, dropping onto the table. There, it burned, the edges curling inward as it sank into the table, smoke rising up. A symbol, red and familiar, remained glowing on the wood: two full wings, open, as if in flight.

It was the same symbol as his curse.

Syaoran had stopped eating, his eyes wide with alarm. "Master Fai, this...this is…"

"Ancient sorcery," Fai answered. "And powerful, too." His eyes had narrowed in concentration, like an animal catching the scent of its prey, ready for the chase.

"Do you think it could be the Witch of the Waste?"

Fai grinned a little, staring down at the symbol, and read a message that the two of them couldn't see. "'He who gives away his wings, oh, flightless man…your wings shall be mine.'" Kurogane and Syaoran held their breath, watching his face for any sign of revelation.

Fai rolled his eyes and held up his hands in defeat. "Well, so much for the table!"

"What the hell did _that _mean?"

Fai only shrugged again. "Who knows, Kuro-pu?"

"The hell you call me –"

Kurogane stopped; Fai's eyes had narrowed again, his gaze locked on the symbol. A feeling of something moving, like the invisible tides in the ocean, came upon them. One slender hand began to move across the symbol, as if erasing its existence; smoke began to rise. Kurogane looked up at the wizard and felt a chill go through him; his hair seemed to have risen around his face, his magic pulsing from within him, and he was reminded of the terrible beauty of the Witch of the Waste just before she cursed him.

"There!" With a flourish, Fai's hand swept across the table.

The symbol was gone.

"Now, be careful – the scorch mark has vanished, but not the spell." Fai rose up suddenly, pushing himself back from the table. "Please, finish eating your meal – Mokona, you can have what's left of mine."

Kurogane glanced at his plate; the wizard hadn't touched anything.

"Hooray, Mokona is the best!" Mokona jumped onto the table, heading for the food.

"And Mokona – move the castle 100 meters, and send hot water up for the bath!"

Mokona deflated. "Fai is the worst," she mumbled.

Kurogane watched Fai's retreating form, following him as far up the stairs with his gaze as he could before turning to Mokona. "How do you move the castle?"

"Mokona has wings," she explained, and said no more.

"Kurogane, can I ask you a question?" Syaoran mopped up the last of his egg yolk with his bread. "This might seem odd, but…did you ever work for the Witch of the Waste?"

"_Work_ for the Witch of the Waste?"

"Well, I don't mean to be rude, but…you _did _have her note on you, so it just seemed…"

All of his rage caught up with him, the fury at being forced from his home, forced into the company of some obnoxious wizard who hardly looked at him and the fury of having to make a deal with his pet rabbit. Kurogane grit his teeth, ready to tell Syaoran exactly what he thought of the Witch of the Waste, when he found suddenly that he couldn't speak.

He did the only thing he could to relieve his anger.

An almighty crash sounded as the table flipped forward. He was standing now, watching as papers came floating down from the air above them, and Syaoran was gawking at him as he yelled, able to speak again.

"_DAMN _that Witch!"

"O-okay." Syaoran scooted back from the man who now stood with two fists clenched at his side, red eyes blazing like a demon.

Mokona looked down at her shattered plate of food, tears clinging to the corners of her slitted eyes. "Mokona was going to eat that…"

* * *

Cleaning was every bit the intensive job that Kurogane had thought it would be.

The effort began with just _getting _to the surfaces; everything was so stacked up with what he considered junk that it turned out ripping things down from the walls (or, well, flipping a table) was an efficient way to begin the process. Fai remained upstairs as Kurogane and Syaoran worked, the windows open wide as dust and all manner of nastiness floated out into the city of Piffle. Meanwhile, as more space became available for cleaning, the more disgusted Kurogane became; there was rotten food, soot, trash, and insects Kurogane had never seen before in his life living in every nook and cranny in the first floor of the castle. He'd killed so many spiders that the poor things had eventually begun to leave on their own accord, and by midday, neat lines of insects had formed, politely evacuating on their own discretion.

Syaoran eventually had stepped outside to catch his breath and escape from the dust. A man in the street pointed up at the open window; the amount of dust puffing out of it could have passed for the smoke from a chimney.

"_What _is going on in there?"

"Our new cleaner," he gasped, "Is _raging._"

It had taken a good four hours, but eventually Kurogane had come to the point of washing the floors. Water splashed down onto the wood; he scrubbed it thoroughly, finding himself calmer when occupied with physical labor.

"Kurogane!" Mokona hopped up onto the hearth, watching him. "Any luck yet?"

"Eh?" He glanced up at it. He thought it was watching him, but it was hard to tell – he couldn't see its eyes.

"Have you figured out what the contract between Fai and Mokona is?"

"How the hell would I know that already?" He scrubbed harder into the corner, watching the wood come to a polished shine.

"You and I could make our own contract!" He glanced at it again, and now it seemed, unless his mind was playing tricks on him, that the little jewel in her forehead seemed to be glowing a bit.

"That so? Thought we already had one."

"That's not a contract, that's a business arrangement!" Mokona nodded to herself; there was a subtle distinction that he didn't understand. Kurogane didn't reply. "But if you were to ask Mokona how to _make _a contract with me, that might give you a clue about Fai and Mokona's contract!"

"So you're looking for ways to cheat?" Neither of them could talk about their predicament…but they could be clever and find other ways to talk about the nature of it. He stopped his work, leaning against the mop. "Fine. Let's say I want to make a deal with you. How does that work?"

"Mokona grants _wishes. _If you have a wish, Mokona can grant it…for a price."

"Can I wish for you to remove this symbol?"

"You could – but you can't afford the price, so Mokona can't do that for you!" Now he was sure of it: the creature really _was _staring at him. "_But, _by breaking Mokona's contract with Fai, you'd be helping to grant _my _wish, and _I _can pay the price and get rid of your curse!"

"What's the price?" He didn't particularly like the rabbit-thing, but then again, he wasn't keen to see it hurt, and whatever the 'price' was, it didn't seem pleasant.

"Mokona already has the price - all the time Mokona has been _stuck _here, working for Fai!" She began hopping up and down, agitated. "Mokona is tired of working! Mokona wants a _vacation!_"

"Tough life." He rolled his eyes, opening his mouth to speak again, and stopped.

Fai was coming down the stairs, dressed in a long, darker blue cloak trimmed in gold flourishes that curled upwards like vines, flowering into lilies. It buttoned just above his waist, exposing his navel.

"Mokona, I heard you yelling – has Kuro-coo got you agitated?" He held out his hand; Mokona jumped into it. Fai gave her a kiss, and whatever enmity she had previously possessed disappeared. Her ears perked up and she spun around on her little feet before hopping back down to the ground.

Two sapphires swung upon him. "_Try _not to torment my friend," he chided.

The door opened; Syaoran came up the stairs, saw Fai's dress, and sighed. "Master Fai, are you going out?"

Fai walked past him, not answering. Kurogane watched as he grasped the doorknob; it whirred, snapping to black. The room darkened.

"Syaoran," he said. "Tell our new cleaning lady not to get _too _carried away."

"Who are you calling a cleaning lady, you son of a –"

The words were momentarily lost over the roar of what was unmistakably fire; for half a second, Kurogane could see out beyond that black doorway into a world of darkness and embers, and then, before he could say anything more, Fai had leapt forward, the door swept shut behind him, and the wheel had switched back to Piffle. Sunlight poured into the downstairs once again.

"Jeez." Syaoran turned to him, shaking his head. "What'd you do, Kurogane?"

"_Me_? I didn't do anything," he snapped.

"He was talking to Mokona!" Mokona nodded wisely down from the floor. "I'll bet Fai knew what we were talking about. He doesn't want anyone else to make a contract with Mokona." Mokona sighed.

"I'm not cutting any contracts today. I'm _cleaning._ Now get out of my way!"

"Wait, Kurogane – don't go up to the second floor!" Syaoran rushed to the stairs, his eyes shining with alarm.

"Kid," he said, his voice the deadly calm he used right before he kicked someone out of the shop, "_Get out of the way._"

Syaoran scrambled up the stairs. "Just – do my room last!" He called.

* * *

The upstairs was exactly like the downstairs…except there were more spiders. In their haste to get out of the castle, the bottom-floor insects had forgotten to alert their upstairs relatives of the warrior who was coming to destroy their homes.

He decided to start from the bathroom and work his way back down the hall and, eventually, the staircase. When he stepped into the room he was forced to pause – actually _stop _in his tracks – and just stare.

"You've got to be shitting me."

Mold and mildew of all types had clustered into the steamy room, growing across everything. Kurogane had once, when he was young, visited a swamp that he was certain had been more hygienic than this. At the very least, the swamp and this bathroom had a number of the same plant species growing in them. He stepped inside, disgusted with the man who could live his life this way, and glanced at the fogged, dirty mirror.

The mark across his chest had gotten bigger.

Well, that wasn't surprising – the witch had said it would, after all, but she had said _eventually _it would grow bigger…how long did he have? He had thought, naively, at least a year – maybe seven, who knows? – but now it seemed he had far, far less. It had grown large enough to stretch from shoulder to shoulder in a single day. His mind worked, guessing at it – if this kept up, at this pace, in order to cover his whole body…a week, tops.

It seemed absurd to be cleaning a bathroom knowing he could be dead by the end of the week.

_You're in the right place – Mokona can help you, _he told himself. _Fai evidently knows something about the Witch – maybe he can help, too. You're getting more done by being here than wandering around like an idiot in the waste. Stay and work…remember what Mokona said… _

And he had; after all, cleaning was more than just useful to keep his mind off things: it also allowed him to search for clues about Fai and Mokona's contract.

Not that any had turned up so far, though. He could hardly bring himself to touch anything in the bathroom, but he steeled his resolve, walked all the way in, and opened the window.

The downstairs was still connected to Piffle; the upstairs was bound by no such constraint. His eyes widened as cold mountain hair rushed in. Outside, snowy, wiped-capped mountains rose, jagged peaks in all their glory, in the distance. The castle was stomping along at a clipping pace just along the edge of a particularly steep mountain plane, a dazzling river stretched between two emerald green swatches of trees. The wind that had rushed past him when Fai had grabbed his arm in the city was nothing compared to this new, refreshing wind that blew into the bathroom, ruffling his hair, filling his body with the scent of the open world. It smelt of freedom and speed.

"Mokona!" He stuck his head out of the bathroom, shouting down the stairs. "Are you moving the castle?"

A tiny voice called back up. "Of course Mokona is!"

"Nice job, pork bun!"

Below, Mokona blinked. "Kurogane said Mokona…is doing a…nice job…" A bashful blush spread across her fur. "Mokona _loves _Kurogane!" She began leaping up and down, sliding along the slick floor. "Kurogane is the _best!_"

Upstairs, Kurogane moved through the hallway, opening up all of the windows. The air rushed in, sweeping out the old, dusty stuffiness. A door, rusted and unopened, finally gave way after he gave it a good shove with his shoulder, opening out onto a balcony.

They had come into full view of a still, peaceful lake, nestled in the middle of the mountain range. The sky arched above it, a matching shade of impossible blue, as the sun filtered down through the clouds, dappling the water. Somewhere there was a world of death and darkness behind a doorknob that turned black; here, staring at the lake, Kurogane couldn't imagine why anyone in the world would want to fight when places like this existed.

"It's called Star Lake." Syaoran's voice sounded behind him. The boy came forward, stepping onto the balcony. "It's beautiful this time of year."

He was struggling to find the right words to speak when a sound interrupted them, like the steady hammering against a tin roof.

"What…is that?"

Kurogane knew what it was as soon as his eyes found the source of the sound: a stick, upside down, lodged in between two pillars of the castle. He grasped the base, gave a solid yank, and let go.

The scarecrow leapt up, landed on the edge of a small turret, and spun, thrilled at being united with his love.

Syaoran stared, amazed. "What _is _it?" He repeated.

"He's called Turnip-head."

"He is?"

"He is now." The scarecrow spun again, as if it couldn't care less what Kurogane called it as long as they could be together.

"It seems to really like you," Syaoran suggested.

"Well, it followed me here…brought me here in the first place, actually."

Now Syaoran was studying him in the same way Fai had earlier. "You sure you're not a wizard in disguise, Kurogane?"

"Yea, sure." He crossed his arms over his chest, annoyed. "The damned, unluckiest wizard in all the land."

* * *

Sunset had come; the castle was clean. It was a miracle, but it was a fact: _the castle was clean._

Mokona had parked the castle next to the very edge of the lake; its waters rippled along a sandy shore, gliding over the pebbles. They had strung up the laundry across the various gossamer wings that surrounded the castle, and the scarecrow, eager to assist Kurogane in any way it could, proudly held onto the longest clothesline, holding it on top of the castle. He stared up at it, puzzled; it reminded him so much of Fai….but no matter how hard he thought about it, he couldn't figure out _why. _They didn't look alike (except for the stupid smile), and the personalities were completely different, but still…

"That scarecrow must have magic of its own." Syaoran stood next to him, staring up at it. "Mokona doesn't mind it being up on the castle, so it must be magical in some way."

Kurogane shoved his hands down into his pockets, thoughtful. "Maybe it's cursed."

"Why, did you ever meet anyone who was cursed?"

Kurogane looked into his eyes, innocent and too serious for their age, and forced a smile.

"Nah."

"Well, I doubt he's cursed," Syaoran went on. He didn't notice the way Kurogane exhaled, letting out a breath he had been holding. "I doubt he would have brought you to us if that was the case."

"Yea. Take the laundry in, would you?"

Syaoran left him. Kurogane kicked off his shoes and stepped into the lake. His feet sank into the sand, soft and gritty, as the cold water collected around his ankles. The light had turned the special golden hue reserved for the last hour of the day, lighting up the waters with a new radiance. There, he could see his reflection and the dark wings that stretched across him, growing larger every day. They were the symbol of his eventual, immediate death, and yet…

_I've never felt this sort of peace. _The thought came and went, hard to hold on to. Kurogane sighed; perhaps it was a virtue to know you were dying and still remain so calm. He'd probably just worked himself so hard today that he was too exhausted now to care about magic or wizards or any other damned thing anymore.

He heard Syaoran come running down to the lakeshore. "We'd better be getting inside," he called. "Night's coming."

"Sure," he called. "I'm coming."

He knew he needed the rest.

* * *

Kurogane was certain he was dreaming. 'Dream' wasn't perhaps the best way to describe it – _a nightmare, more like it_. The lake and its limpid waters were gone, replaced in his dream with metal airships that soared through a blackened sky of fire and death. Their bellies were bloated with bombs that fell down and away from them, raining destruction from the skies.

A bird, a blue swallow, was flying between the bombs, out of place in that scene. No, it wasn't a bird – _Fai! _His mind thought, but the image blurred and shifted; was Fai _half _bird? Was that just his coat, long and blue, emblazoned with magical patterns, or was that really his wings, stretching out as he flew up toward the airships…?

The bay doors of one of the ships opened, ejecting creatures that reminded him of the vermin he had sent scurrying out of the house. They were like grotesque chimeras of men, bats, and insects all at once, a whole hoard of them, teeth gnashing, and they were rushing at Fai. Fai was soaring through them, sending them crashing into one another, and then up, up through the darkening storm clouds, toward the only patch of blue sky, toward escape and freedom –

The bird disappeared. Darkness closed all around.

* * *

It was close to dawn when Mokona looked up from the edge of the hearth. A familiar whirring sound indicated that the doorknob had switched to black, and although the door didn't open, she knew that someone had entered, all the same.

Fai appeared slowly, a wraith materializing from the darkness. Where two arms had been, long, tattered blue wings trailed, the feathers singed, and where flight feathers would have extended, razor-like claws protruded, as if two forms had struggled for dominance over his body. His face was smudged with smoke, eyes shut in pain. A chair had been set out by the fireplace; he collapsed in front of it, gasping as his head fell backwards.

Fai brought his legs up wearily; the same claws grew from his feet as from the ends of his wings, sharp and colored with blood on the end.

"Fai…" Mokona spoke quietly, listening to the sound of his jagged breathing. "You smell bad…like burned people…and steel…"

The wizard opened his eyes; gone were the blue sapphires, replaced by two yellow orbs with slit pupils. He cried out, his body tensing as he struggled with some war within himself. Mokona watched as the feathers sunk back into him, smoothing away as they regained the pattern of the clothes, returning to fabric. The claws retracted back into him, growing shorter until he let out a long, slow sigh, normal again.

"Fai," Mokona tried again, hesitant. "If you keep flying, one day you won't be able to change yourself back."

Fai remained silent, steadying his breathing.

Mokona tried a different tactic. "Isn't this great?" Her ear twitched in the general direction of the fireplace. "Kurogane did all this for me! Now I can stay warm without having to get dirty."

He didn't say anything as he sat up, pulling his feet back down to the ground. He leaned forward, his body disheveled, and when at last he spoke his voice was weary and pained. "The fighting is bad, Mokona," he whispered. "The whole country is ablaze from the southern coast to the northern border…" She was silent now, attentive for him. A new sorrow came to his eyes. "My own kind attacked me."

"Was it the Witch of the Waste?"

"No, no one of her caliber." He brushed his bangs away from his face, dragging soot through his hair. "Just hack wizards, masquerading as monsters. Just like me, really…"

Mokona's ears fell down in sympathy. "They'll be so sad later, when they can't go back to being humans. They'll cry."

Fai's voice was suddenly cold. "No, they'll just forget they ever knew how to cry."

Mokona jumped into his lap. "But Fai…you have to go fight, more…aren't you supposed to report to the king?"

He put a comforting hand on her head, trying to smile. "Yes, well…" And when no good answer came to him, he shrugged, standing. Mokona leapt off, watching him walk away to the stairs. "How about some hot water for a bath?"

"Again!"

Fai paused. Near the stairs, in a cubby-hole that had previously been crammed to the brink with junk, a makeshift bed had been made with a curtain thrown up over it for privacy. Fai pushed the curtain aside and gazed down at the sleeping man.

His face was troubled in his sleep, as if some horrible nightmare plagued him; he had broken out into a cold sweat, his dark hair clinging to his skin. Worse, the curse over his body had gotten larger – it wouldn't be many more days before the wings were large enough to engulf and kill him; seven days total, if he knew anything about magic…and Fai knew a lot about magic. He'd already used up two days…he only had five left. Fai frowned; it would be a tough curse to break, but with enough time, surely he could find a way…he, who had gained so much magic…

But that was the problem: not enough time. He could _try, _though…

The curtain swung shut; Fai disappeared up the stairs.

* * *

The sound of water rushing through the pipes above his head woke Kurogane an hour later. He threw back the curtains; the sun had come up, full and bright, with the dawn of a new day.

"Fai taking a bath _again_?"

"Of course," Mokona sighed.

A half hour later, he had successfully dragged Syaoran out of bed, put on his cloak and grabbed his sword, and made it out the door to buy food for breakfast.

"The food is the best in the morning, but…" Syaoran rubbed his eyes, adjusting to the sun. "It's still really early…"

The rest of the world disagreed; the coast of Piffle had come to life in the bustling madness of the sea market. The air stung pleasantly with the salt water; overhead, seagulls soared, swooping down at the fish stalls in the hope of stealing away some poor fisherman's wares. Already the market was crowded by the folk pushing against one another to purchase the freshest catches that had come in with the morning tide. Kurogane looked out at the water; sailboats glided in the distance, safe in the bay.

"Let's do fish and potatoes."

Syaoran looked up, cringing. "I –"

Red eyes glared.

"…love fish and potatoes," he finished.

"This one." He was pressed against the nearest fish vendor; mackerel had been stacked up in heaps. A big, fat one lay near the top; it would taste great fried up with some butter and onions –

"The fleet! The fleet's come home!"

The market people collectively gasped; Kurogane turned, following the stampeding crowd with his eyes. Men were leaping into rowboats, heading out toward a barge that came lurching into the bay. Its hull had been blown open in multiple spots; smoke, thick and black, poured out of it like blood leaking up toward the sky. Even from the shore, he could just make out the terrified faces of men as they leapt from the deck of the ship down into the water, swimming for safety.

"Let's go get a closer look –"

"No." Kurogane grabbed his shoulder, holding him back. "Let's not make war a bigger spectacle than it is. Let's go home." He turned to go when a movement caught his eye, something out of place in a world of blues and reds and greens –

_Black. _The black armor of the Witch of the Waste's servants.

His grip tightened on the sword at his side. It was just one, but it stood frozen, looking out at the destruction.

"Syaoran, listen to me." The boy froze at the tone in his voice. "There's a servant of the Witch of the Waste to our left – _don't look!_ Stay still." He glanced again and saw it slink away, into the crowd. If he took off now, he might just catch it –

A brief whistling filled his ears, followed by the sound of explosions, the crashing of waves. The same people who had crowded the docks were now screaming, running through the market, trampling the stalls as the coast dissolved into chaos.

"It's bombs – an enemy airship!" Syaoran called. "In the water!"

The water was still falling down from where the bombs had fallen, accompanied now by small pamphlets that fluttered around their heads as they made their way back up the street to the deserted office building.

"Get – _inside!_" Kurogane shoved Syaoran in first, then slammed the door behind him.

"The war…it's getting closer every day." Syaoran moved over to the kitchen, glancing out the window.

"Let's hope it doesn't get any closer." Kurogane tossed his cloak and sword onto his bed, sighing.

"How long do you think it'll take before –"

His question was interrupted by an earsplitting scream. All three of them looked up, alarmed, as the bathroom door was flung open upstairs.

The furious pounding of running feet came crashing halfway down the stairway. Kurogane stopped dead in his tracks, staring: Fai stood there, naked spare a short towel wrapped half-heartedly around his waist, clutching at his hair…which was distinctly _not _blonde.

"_Kurogane!" _Cold blue eyes looked up at him, furious. "What did you do to the bathroom shelves?"

"Eh?"

"_LOOK!" _He ran down the stairs until they were less than an inch apart. Kurogane remained frozen, unsure what to do. Fai was clutching his hair, yelling at him about…something? It was hard to concentrate, what with his skin still wet and smelling like soap. He'd gone from seeing the man dressed in no less than three layers of heavy clothing to...a towel. More like a washrag, really…a washrag that was doing a _terrible _job of staying on those hips –

"Are you listening to me!" He shrieked louder, nearly head butting him as he shoved his hair in his face. "My hair's turned this…_weird, awful color!_"

"Eh…it doesn't look too bad."

His hair was the color of dried marmalade, not that Kurogane had noticed; his eyes were elsewhere.

"You mixed up everything on the shelves and _ruined _my spells!"

"Mixed up?" Kurogane tried to focus. "I didn't mix up anything, I just cleaned it."

"_Cleaning,_" Fai cursed, his body shaking with rage. "Cleaning, always _cleaning! _ I _told _you not to get carried away…" He turned away from Kurogane, sinking into the chair by the fire, and now the washrag was having a decidedly difficult time at staying on him. Kurogane wondered why he was sweating all of a sudden as his eyes followed the gentle curve of the wizard's spine down his back…_all _the way down his back…

Fai broke into a sob. "This. Is. _Humiliating._"

"Huh?" He tore his eyes away forcibly and looked, for the first time, at Fai's hair. "What are you going on about? It's…okay."

"It's _hopeless, _is what it is."

Kurogane watched as Fai's hair began to darken and go limp like a plant slowly dying in the sun; it melted from orange to mud brown to finally a desolate black. It reminded him of his own hair.

"This one's a good shade," he offered; he reached out hesitantly to touch his shoulder in support.

"I look like _you_," Fai hissed. "What's the point of living if I have to have _black _hair?"

"The hell is wrong with black hair – _Fai!_"

The room darkened as if someone had turned the doorknob to black; Fai's body slumped forward completely; he collapsed down to his knees, his eyes vacant. From beneath him, black, swirling patterns, the same as those on his blue cloak, began to spread, snaking along the floor and curling up along the wall like a cage.

"Syaoran!" Kurogane turned to him, desperate. "What's going on?"

Syaoran looked around the room; the curling shadows were getting bigger. "He's calling on the spirits of darkness."

"He's _WHAT!"_

Syaoran inclined his head apologetically, mumbling. "He did this the last time a guy ditched him."

"Fai – _that's enough!_" Kurogane shook him, but the wizard's eyes remained vacant, his mind locked somewhere inside him. "Snap out of it! You can just dye your goddamn hair again!"

The shadows grew worse, flowing with more speed.

Mokona leapt up, her ears straight. "Syaoran, if the edges touch at the top, it'll form a cage and lock us all in here for good! You've got to help him!"

"That's right – _you _help him." Kurogane whirled on the boy, a sudden rage coming over him. "I'm _done. _You hear me, Fai?" He knew he was yelling now, but that was fine with him. "I've had _enough _of you and your goddamn castle! I'm _done!_"

And with that, he stormed outside, into the rain.

* * *

With the gray clouds hanging over the mountain, showering the lake in a cold rain, the beautiful world from yesterday was gone, replaced by a murky land of wetness. He stood down by the lakeside, watching the raindrops shatter the still surface of the lake, and felt envy and resentment and hatred and frustration all well up in him, poisonous and unsettling.

He had less than a week left to live, and meanwhile, Fai had decided that life was hopeless if he couldn't have _blonde _hair. If he was a weaker man, Kurogane might have cried; a little less sane, and he might have even laughed. Instead, he stood by the lake and sighed, letting all of his rage build up in him…and go. Fai might have been a stupid, vain man…but it wasn't his fault that Kurogane was cursed.

A familiar, if albeit wet, _plunking_ sounded behind him. The rain suddenly stopped soaking him through; he looked up to the find the scarecrow holding an umbrella over him, smiling. Always happy to be near him, to help him.

Kurogane sighed again, heavier. "You're hopeless, you know that?"

It hopped once, but whether in agreement or disagreement, Kurogane didn't know.

* * *

By the time he dragged his wet body back inside the castle, the black, curling shadows had almost closed at the top of the ceiling. There was a unique pattern to them, ornate and exotic, that made him want to pause and look at them…but the prospect of being eternally trapped in the castle wasn't very appealing to him. _Well, not eternally, _he thought. He wouldn't live that long.

"Kurogane!" Syaoran and Mokona both rushed to him, panicked. "Please, do you have any ideas –"

"Yea." He glanced back up at the shadows; not much time, now, but he was confident. "Mokona – run some hot water."

Mokona nodded and bounced off. Kurogane walked to where Fai lay crumpled on the floor and picked him up; Fai's head rested against his collarbone, his skin soft. Kurogane's fingertips found their way to the small of the wizard's back as he carried him up the stairs; really, no one could _blame _him if he snuck a look, especially after all the work he'd done for the guy, not to mention possibly saving his life just now…

Kurogane glanced down, hoping to get a glance at his legs, and froze.

The towel had come off and fallen away three steps ago.

"Syaoran – go get him in the bath."

"Me – what? Wait!"

Kurogane unceremoniously dumped him on top of the boy and stiffly made his way downstairs.

He needed some time alone.

* * *

Evening had fallen; the rain had stopped, and slowly, the shadows had receded. It seemed there was nothing a good, hot bath couldn't solve. Syaoran had told him he'd gotten Fai into bed and then gone up to his own room, and Mokona, sensing his unease, had helped Kurogane make a cup of tea to take up to the wizard.

Fai's room was the only room he hadn't cleaned; the door had been shut, which wouldn't have stopped him, really, but there was something almost sacred about it. Even though it would have been the smartest place to look for clues about Fai's contract, he had held himself back, unwilling to play the traitor and trespass so blatantly into the man's life.

He entered now and paused on the threshold, his breath catching.

Everything glittered and sparkled from a light source that Kurogane couldn't see; some hidden lamp made the room jump to life. It was as cluttered as the downstairs had been, but where the downstairs had inspired revulsion, Fai's room was beautiful in its absurd whimsy. Bunches of peacock feathers exploded next to color ribbons, kaleidoscopes twinkled near looking glasses, reflecting a world of a hundred different, expanding prisms; stuffed animals, more books, and piles of glittery jewels stacked up to the ceiling, where more watches and threads, gourds, and even golden trinkets of every size dangled in a world of rainbow imagination.

A bed lay nestled in the room, a small path leading to it. Fai laid there, his head resting on his pillow…his hair still black.

Kurogane set the tea down on the nightstand next to him, pushing away a pile of baubles to make room for it. He glanced down at the man; _hopeless. _Yes, hopeless. It was funny, really – here he was, facing certain doom from a curse…and somehow, he felt as though Fai was worse off than him. A certain pity and fondness stirred in his heart as he walked back to the door to leave the wizard to his world of trinkets.

"Don't leave….Kurogane."

Kurogane paused, his hand on the doorknob. He turned slowly, glancing back at the wizard; his eyes were open now, filled with guilt and misery.

Kurogane moved back into the room and found a chair with just enough room left to sit on.

"Try the tea," he suggested. "Mokona helped make it."

Fai sighed, his gaze slipping away to stare up at a glinting ruby that spun slowly above the bed, one of a hundred such treasures floating between them. "The Witch of the Waste is searching for my castle."

Kurogane froze – did Fai know? _No. _He remembered the note from earlier, and the way the Witch had told him, just before she left, to give her regards to Fai. He wasn't sure what to say, or what he _could _say without freezing up and making Fai suspicious.

"I saw one of her servants in Piffle today," he offered. "She must be getting close."

"I can't seem to run fast enough." He looked so desperately miserable that Kurogane had the sudden urge to take his hand where it rested above the comforter. "The truth is…I'm a coward. All of this," he waved his hand at the glittery world he had created for himself, "Is just junk and sorcery to keep her away. I'm…I'm scared to death," he whispered.

Kurogane hadn't thought his hatred for the witch could grow, and yet hot anger expanded in his chest. "Tell me…why is the Witch after you?"

"She's just doing what she must. Once, I tried to help her…she seemed quite…_interesting, _from a magical perspective. I approached her, but….she terrified me, so I did what I do best: I ran away."

Kurogane sighed. He really wasn't the only one with problems.

"And now I've got to report to the King…he's called for Wizard Fye and Fey."

"How many names do you use, Fai?"

He looked at him and smiled suddenly, but it was empty and sad. "Enough to guarantee my freedom."

It was a moment before he spoke again, but Kurogane pressed on. "Can't you refuse the king?"

"Look." A weary hand pointed upward. Up, high near the roof, a piece of parchment had been nailed to the wall by a jeweled pair of scissors and three daggers in a show of contempt. "That's the oath I took at the Sorcery Academy, back when I studied in Kingsbury."

"If you've been there before, just go again." Kurogane folded his arms over his chest, certain he'd found the solution. "Just visit the king." Fai looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. Kurogane sighed and continued. "Stop being a coward. Go visit him, and say to his face: 'Stop this foolish war. I refuse to help you.'"

Fai's eyes rolled; he sank back into the pillows, discontent. "Kurogane, you don't know what they're like."

"I know what they're _supposed _to be like," he snapped. "A king should think only of what's best for his people."

Something in his words struck a note; Fai sprang upward, startling him in his chair. The wizard's hair fell down around his face boyishly, and his eyes – flat and hollowed before – now sparkled with renewed life. "I've got it!" He reached forward and grasped Kurogane's hand; Kurogane froze, his breath catching in his throat. "You'll go in my place!"

"I'll…I'll _what_?"

"Pretend you're my lover!" Fai's eyes were _shining _now as he pulled Kurogane's hand toward him, grasping it with both of his. "Here's the plan! You go and tell the king that you're my lover and you can't stand the thought of them sending me permanently off to war because then you'll have no one to warm your sheets at night, and what's worse, I'm not exactly known for my loyalty, so you're terrified I'll cheat on you with some military man and leave you for good and then –"

Kurogane wrenched his hand away. "Have you lost your fucking mind?"

"Okay, okay." Fai calmed down a little, but his excitement was still palpable. "You can go and say you're my lover –"

"_Cousin_."

"But that's illegal in Ingary."

"Not your lover _and _cousin, idiot!"

"Fine, _cousin _– jeez, Kuro-chi," Fai muttered. "Okay, you go, say you're my _cousin, _and that I'm a lazy, idle, good-for-nothing wizard not worth having on the battlefield."

"So I just need to lie and say I'm your cousin?"

"Well, that's only _part _of the lie. The rest is a lie, too."

He sat back, grinning. "…Is it now?"

Fai was too excited with his plan to catch the insult. "This will definitely work! Maybe Madam Yuko will even give up on me!"

"Eh? Who's Madam Yuko?"

* * *

By the next morning, he'd been briefed on his mission. Kurogane drew his cloak around his shoulders and fastened his sword to his waist, ready for the journey.

Syaoran and Mokona stood watching, dumbfounded. Both of them thought the plan was stupid; both of them had the sense not to say so.

Fai had come downstairs to see him off. Kurogane did his best not to look at him, but it was hard…what with his only being wrapped in a blanket now, his black hair still falling messily about his face.

Fai's eyes flitted up and down his body. "Are you _really _wearing that cloak?"

Kurogane grunted and headed down the stairs; the pulse of magic that he had grown familiar with surrounded him, and suddenly Fai was there, having leapt down lightly to his side; his fingertips brushed across Kurogane's earlobe.

Kurogane shivered, unsure what to do. Fai's voice sounded close to his ear. "This earring assures you're safe return."

Kurogane reached up; a light earring had been clipped to his ear. Puzzled, he looked up at the wizard who grinned back at him, a matching earring visible on his opposite ear. He wanted to ask how it worked, but a strange lump was in his throat – Fai was so close, his eyes burning in their brightness, and if he leaned forward just enough, he could kiss the wizard –

"Don't worry!" Fai moved away now, shoving him out the door. "I'll follow you in disguise!"

And Kurogane found himself in the street, blood rushing in his ears.

* * *

His first thought, as he walked toward the palace in the heart of Kingsbury, was that _this will never work. _

As he drew closer to the palace, the city life grew more varied – people went riding by in cars, personal airships zipped overhead, cafes carried their tables outside for their patrons to enjoy the sunny weather. A crow flew by, cawing.

"Eh, that's not him…" He walked along moodily, his eyes scanning everything for some sign of the disguised Fai. "Not flamboyant enough."

He came into a small city square with a fountain centered in the middle of it. A white dove landed on top, splashing its feathers with water. _Not dramatic enough, either_, he reasoned.

He'd come all the way to the gates of Kingsbury without any sign of Fai. He passed the uniformed officers with a scowl, staring off at the palace in the distance. He'd walked for the better part of morning, and yet it was still so far away…

He strode into the palace square, staring at the women and courtiers. How many of their dresses had been made by Tomoyo…and how was she now? _I'll see her next week, _he promised himself. _Next week, the curse will be gone. I'll still be alive. I'll go back to the shop, and I'll… _His thoughts stopped; _would _he go back to the shop? How could he go back to that life when he had experienced the open world through the windows of a moving castle? It wasn't as if Fai would just let him freeload off of him for the rest of his life. Sure, he had joked about them being lovers, but it wasn't as if _that _could ever happen, and he didn't even like him anywhere near that much, anyways – in fact, didn't like him _at all, _now that he thought about it…a lot...

His mind was finally pulled out of his thoughts when he became aware that he was being followed.

He glanced behind him, down at the ground.

A black version of Mokona was walking along behind him, its ears flat back against its head.

"Fai?"

The Mokona looked up at him. "Mokona is Mokona!"

_Sounds about right. _"Tch, disguising yourself as Mokona…really, I would have thought you'd be a little more imaginative than just changing the color, idiot."

Kurogane looked up and noticed that a carriage had pulled along beside him…a carriage pulled by two men in black, full bodied armor.

He made to draw his sword; the carriage window opened, and a familiar, young girl with vacant green eyes stared out at him.

"It's you," she said, her voice light and simple, without inflection.

"Witch," he snarled. "Come to finish me off?"

She inclined her head, staring at the symbol across his chest. "There's no need…it's getting bigger every day. Soon, now… Thank you," she said suddenly. "You delivered my note to Fai."

Beside him, the black Mokona listened, its face troubled.

"….How is Fai doing?"

"He's terrified," he spat at her. "If you want to know, I'm staying with him."

"Oh. That's nice." There was something oddly disjointed about her, as if her voice and thoughts didn't quite match up. "Why are you here at the palace?"

"Like that's any of your goddamn business."

"I guess it isn't. The king invited me, you know," she said. "Madam Yuko needs my power."

"Yea? If you're so strong, why don't you break the curse you put on me?"

"That's impossible," she said, and the curtain swung shut. The two men carrying her carriage sped up, heading straight for the stairs that led up to the palace entrance.

Kurogane watched her go, furious. He turned to Mokona, cursing. "If you weren't here, I would have cut her down with my sword!"

Mokona shrugged.

But a strange thing happened at the foot of the stairs; the armored men gave a great shudder and collapsed, their clothes falling down, empty. Kurogane watched, amazed – it was as he suspected, then. _Magic. _

A courtier at the foot of the stairs shouted to them. "Vehicles are prohibited at this point! Please, continue on foot!"

Kurogane watched as the Witch emerged from her carriage; she was so _smaller _than he remembered.

"Hurry!" Kurogane glanced down; the black Mokona leapt up onto his shoulder, then on top of his head. "And carry me, would 'ya?"

He began the ascent, his skin prickling; the Witch was so close to him… He had thought finding her would solve all his problems, but no – she wouldn't remove the curse. If he killed her and that lifted it, that might work, but if it didn't…well, then he'd just be in jail for killing one of the king's invited guests, staining his palace's stairs with her blood, no less. He glanced behind him, watching as she slowly made her way up the stairs, curious to get a better look at her.

The longer he watched her, the more he became aware that something was odd. Each step brought about a new change – it was like watching the slow erosion of something powerful. Her steps became a little less sure; she began to slump, and gasp. There was something pained about each sharp intake of breath, as if she was hurt somewhere inside, struggling now to breath with the effort of climbing the hundreds of stairs. By the midway point, her hair – brown and soft – clung to her with sweat. Something was wrong with her left leg; it was as if she was slowly losing the feeling in it the longer she climbed until she was dragging it behind her, battling just to stand and somehow climb at the same time.

He paused, close to the top, his eyes locked on her. He had thought something was odd – no, _something is wrong. _He had never thought of the Witch as a child before, but now, for some reason, he could see her – _really _see her, and what he saw was a fourteen year-old girl struggling, barely managing to hold herself up and breathe, in tremendous pain, trying to climb the stairs. The strangest part about it all was her eyes – they had been empty before, but now, as her condition worsened, her eyes seemed to grow a little brighter with each step, shining with some new spirit that was slowly being unfettered from within.

He hated her…or thought he had hated her, at least, but some pity stirred in his heart. Maybe she was just a child – or maybe it was magic. Either way, he tore his eyes away and turned to a man who had appeared to guide him aside, a young man with dark hair and serious, morose eyes.

"Kurogane," he said. "My name is Doumeki. Please follow me."

"Wait." He jerked his head over his shoulder, down toward the Witch. She still had a quarter of the way to go. "You should send someone to help her."

He shook his head. "We're forbidden to assist anyone up the stairs."

"Then I'll wait."

Doumeki didn't reply as Kurogane turned around, watching the girl drag herself up the remaining steps. She had completely lost the use of her leg; two shaking hands grasped it, dragging it in front of her, until finally she collapsed in a heap at his feet at the top of the stairs.

He stared down at her, his expression unreadable.

"…And you call yourself a witch?"

She looked up at him, her eyes swimming in an out of focus, as if she didn't know where she was or who he was…or who _she_ was, for that matter. She was a confused, broken thing, and even as he knew he'd probably regret it, pity compelled him as he leaned down and picked her up, cradling her in his arms.

They were announced as they came into the palace.

"Cousin to the Wizard Fye! The Witch of the Waste!"

Well, those were two phrases he hadn't expected to hear in this lifetime…

Kurogane followed Doumeki through the palace's main hall, into a small sitting room. The door shut behind him.

"Please, leave her here," he instructed.

There was nowhere to sit her down spare the middle of the floor; Kurogane gently lowered her and stepped away. She remained motionless, her eyes shut.

Mokona leapt down from his head and took off suddenly through a side hallway, ducking behind a gilded tapestry.

"Fai – get back here!"

Unconcerned, Doumeki watched them go. He stepped toward the back of the room, out of the way, and watched as a strange thing happened.

The Witch began to glow, soft at first, than brighter and more insistent until the light itself seemed to lift her to her feet, suspending her in the air. Individual rays of light extended from her back, expanding until they formed the glowing outlines of what were unmistakably feathers, like wings made of pure soul. They grew larger in size until they began to curl inward, like flower petals retracting from the night, engulfing the girl completely, and then a brilliant, blinding light filled the room.

* * *

A second young man, thinner and with glasses, found Kurogane, lost in the palace's secret hallways, and introduced himself as Watanuki. The young man guided him to a massive indoor arboretum.

The glass walls extended upward, two stories high into the sky, allowing the sun to pour through. Palm trees and other tropical plants bloomed out season, orchids spreading in patches of purple and white in the underbrush.

Kurogane followed Watanuki down to the end of the arboretum where there, stretched out luxuriously on a long, plush couch, reclined a woman smoking a pipe. Her body curved sumptuously, her dress falling away from a slit that snuck up from the ankle all the way up to reveal the pale flesh of her thigh. Her hair, long and black, like fine spider's silk, draped over the couch, and her eyes – eyes that looked at him and somehow knew everything about him, followed him as he sat down awkwardly in a chair facing her.

Watanuki stood quietly behind her; Kurogane glanced down at the floor; the black Mokona had made its way to her long before he did, as it began to sip at a small cocktail.

"I understand your Fai's cousin?" She took a long drag from her pipe and exhaled the smoke, her eyes shining devilishly.

"Yea," he said, unsure if she had said _Fye, Fay, _or _Fai_. It all sounded the same to him. "Fai's cousin."

"Mmm…I'm sure you are." Her tone of voice suggested otherwise. "I'm Madam Yuko, His Majesty's Witch."

"…That thing…" Kurogane pointed at Mokona, figuring his first priority was to get Fai out of her clutches.

"Ah." Yuko looked down at it, grinning. "You mean Mokona? He does my errands. I asked him to escort you. Perhaps you've met one before? After all, I made two…"

"No," he lied. "Never seen one before." He made a mental note to punch Fai in the face the next time he saw him. '_I'll come with you in disguise' – you bastard! _

"So, Fai won't join us, then…?"

Kurogane straightened up and touched the hilt of his sword for reassurance. "No." He spoke woodenly, as he had rehearsed. "He'd be useless. You wouldn't want him here, anyways."

"What a shame." Yuko tapped the end of her pipe on a small disc, loosening the tobacco. "I had thought to make him my apprentice. He was a student of such marvelous gifts….but sometimes, you know, people make poor decisions. They ask for things they do not need, because, in their great desire – in their _want _for something – they forget the distinction."

Kurogane wasn't sure what to say that. He listened quietly, hoping she would go on. Yuko sat up, her long limbs stretching out. "Now, he uses his magic for purely selfish reasons. Kurogane…you must forgive me if I'm forward with you: he is dangerous. His power is too great for someone with no means of controlling it. If he follows the path he is on, he'll end up like the Witch of the Waste. He will become a monster. Speaking of the Witch…bring her in."

Kurogane turned, his sharp gaze watching as Doumeki returned, wheeling the Witch in a chair down the path toward Yuko's lounge.

She had changed completely, not in dress or appearance, but in manner. Her eyes had a bright new shine, though they were clouded with tears, and she hugged her legs – both working now – close to her.

Kurogane rounded on Yuko, his eyes flashing. "Did you hurt that child?"

"_Hurt_ her? I would have thought you'd have no great love for her."

Doumeki brought the chair to a stop by Kurogane, and now he could see her in full view: whatever malice had once possessed her was gone. Now, she wept quietly to herself, a child.

"Don't play games with me," he warned, but Yuko held up a hand to stop him.

"She is not hurt – in fact, she is _healed. _She was under the influence of a powerful man…a powerful man who is at war with our country. She was stolen away, and her magic – which was more powerful than even the great Wizard Fai's – was used against her, to control her. If I'm not mistaken, Fai once tried to free her. He had heard of her story and felt a great pity for her…but failed. I have done what he did not; I have sealed away all her magic inside her and released her from the curse that was upon her. She can no longer hurt anyone…and her name, you might care to know, is Sakura."

Kurogane looked down at the girl; so the Witch of the Waste, who he had been a victim of…was just a victim in return. He sighed; he had still hoped, if only a little bit, that he could get her to remove the curse, that he wouldn't have to resort to breaking Mokona's contract…and betray Fai.

"Our kingdom can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to disreputable witches and wizards," Yuko continued. "_Fai _included. If he comes here to serve the kingdom, I will teach him how to end his contract with the _other _Mokona." Yuko's eyes narrowed at him, and Kurogane felt himself caught in the trap. "If not…I will strip him of his powers."

"Fai's not coming here." His voice was dangerously low, his eyes locked on Yuko's. "I won't let him. The _other _Mokona has already told me how to break his contract – he doesn't need _your _help. He has me."

Yuko took a patient toke on her pipe, her lips curling into a smile. "And tell me, Kurogane, do you have _him_?"

He felt his anger rise. "I doubt I ever will. You're right about him – he's selfish. He's also a coward, which is worse, but he…he only wants to be free." Behind him, Sakura had stopped crying. She stared up at him now, her eyes wide as she listened. "He won't become a monster – he won't let anything control him, whatever it is. Or if he won't, _I _won't."

A strange feeling came over him, then, as if he had been holding a tight fist and suddenly released it, but it was in his chest…he glanced at his reflection in the glass window of the arboretum and saw, remarkably, that the symbol had _shrunk, _the ends curling up inward, smaller –

"My dear Kurogane." Yuko beamed at him, genuinely delighted. "You're in love with Fai."

Just as suddenly as he had felt released, a searing pain returned, snapping back. He looked back at his reflection; he must have imagined it a moment ago, because the symbol was as big as ever, stretching past his shoulders now.

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Fai?" A quiet voice came from behind him; a weak tug pulled at the hem of his cloak. Kurogane glanced behind him. Sakura was looking at him, her eyes pleading. "Do you know where Fai is? I…I want to tell him…I'm sorry…"

A buzzing sounded; they all turned to look as a personal airship landed neatly outside the glass walls of the arboretum. Watanuki walked over to the door, opening it for the man who now dismounted and came forward, his long, black hair tied neatly back in a pony tail over flowing, purple robes.

"You know, Kurogane, I think you're wrong – Fai _will _come here," Yuko said. "You see, he doesn't like other people to know his weaknesses…ah!" She stretched out a hand as the man came into the arboretum; he smiled, leaned down, and kissed it in greeting.

Yuko's glittering eyes moved back to Kurogane.

"Allow me to introduce you to His Majesty, King Clow Reed…"

**Author's Note: Phew, part 2 is done! I can't **_**believe **_**how much stuff happens in a single half hour of this movie. If you're quite familiar with **_**Howl's Moving Castle, **_**then you'll see that I've decided to connect the disparate narratives of the Witch of the Waste and Ingary's war; I always thought it would have been much cleaner, plot-wise, if these tied together somehow. I'm of the opinion that all roads should lead to Rome. In any event, I'm taking a break for the weekend, so the remaining two parts will go up next week! If you've read this much so far (it's quite a lot!) thank you so much for your time! Please leave a review and let me know your thoughts! Hope you've enjoyed it so far! **


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: Thanks for your patience regarding the delay between Part 2 and 3! After South Beach, Key Biscayne, Miami, and Lauderdale, I am officially three shades tanner, which, you'll be happy to know, increases the quality of my writing! Or at least…I think that's how it works. Anyways, Part 4 will go up either on Friday or Saturday. Thank you all for your kind reviews – they made the weekend that much more wonderful! Please enjoy, and as always, thank you for reading! **

* * *

Kurogane studied the king; there was something about the way Clow's eyes seemed to shimmer behind his spectacles that made him uneasy. He wasn't a particularly tall man, and he didn't look to be particularly strong…but he was distinctly reminded of the odd sensation of _magic _that he had grown accustomed to, a slight pressure change in the air. The king radiated power coupled with a deep tranquility.

Clow inclined his head and smiled warmly at Yuko. "How are you feeling today?"

Limbs moved again, unfurling across the couch; a swatch of black hair glided over her exposed shoulder, resting near her throat. "Fine," she answered, her tone pleasantly amused, "Thank you for asking. What brings you here today?"

The king glanced out at the open world beyond the glass walls of the arboretum. "I was bored. I thought I'd take a flight… get some fresh air."

Kurogane shivered; Yuko's lips had stretched into a big, smug smile. A slender hand lifted the pipe, inhaled the smoke, and released a thin, gray coil slowly, her eyes flashing with merriment. "How lovely," came her comment, and then, "We have guests."

The king turned to him. Kurogane stiffened, holding his sword a little closer. Clow's eyes swept over him and Sakura, but he spoke again to Yuko.

"These are…?"

"_He…_" Yuko pointed her pipe at Kurogane. "…Is the Wizard Fai Fluorite's…_cousin,_ did you say?" Another trail of smoke punctuated her incredulity.

"Yea."

"I see." Clow came forward, and the sensation of standing in an unseen tide of magic came upon him once more. It felt like being trapped in a rip current that pulled him in all directions yet kept him frozen to the spot.

He thought perhaps the king would have harsh words for him, but instead, the man inclined his head, smiling. An unruly strand of black hair slipped out of his pony tail, falling forward. "You came on behalf of the Wizard Fai? Let me guess – he doesn't wish to serve our country."

Kurogane grunted in reply.

Clow only smiled more pleasantly. "That's understandable. Well, young man, I'm afraid your efforts of coming all this way have been wasted. Oh, hold on –" Kurogane had made to draw his sword, his blood rushing: it would be high treason to threaten the king, but he wouldn't take no for an answer, not after all this. Clow raised his hands hastily. "What I meant was, I don't intend to win this war with anyone else's magic. I don't want anyone else to be hurt; I've seen what it can to do people. It's true that Yuko's powers shield our palace from bombs, but the result of that, too, has been…unclean. They fall on neighboring towns, instead. Everything has a price. That's how magic works, isn't it, Yuko?"

Yuko had sat up; her hair had completely fallen forward now as she reclined her head against one curled, delicate fist with the feline grace of a tigress. Her lips curled into a smile again, and from where her pipe rested against her exposed thigh, smoke rose, curling into the shape of butterflies. "You're very talkative today, your majesty." Her smile broke into a toothy grin, and Kurogane watched as she pointed down the path he had come, following it away, toward a man who was coming forward in very distinct purple robes…

"Yuko!" The second Clow Reed approached, out of breath. Like the first king, strands of his hair had managed to come untucked from his ponytail, framing his face. He was of the special sort of nature that seemed both young and old at the same time – his eyes contained the knowledge of some great sorrow and some tremendous joy, and they gleamed with both as he straightened himself to his full height, his robes settling behind him. "The final battle is close. I think we can end this, and –" Clow stopped. He stared at the doppelganger, who remained smiling pleasantly in front of him, and deflated a little. Clow turned back to Yuko, an amused grimace on his face. "You're one step ahead of me...again."

"I always was," she replied. "But you'll catch up, eventually."

"Then it seems I am not needed here… Good luck to you all." The real Clow inclined his head in a token of unparalleled courtesy and departed, the silks of his clothes rising behind him as he went.

Kurogane stood still, blinking. Whatever had just happened had come and gone too fast for him to understand. An awkward silence settled over them as Yuko patiently tapped the ashes out of her pipe.

"Well," she said at length, her eyes falling on the imposter. "It's been awhile, Fai."

Kurogane turned to stare at him slowly, his stomach churning.

The fake Clow nodded. "I'm delighted to see you are doing so well, Yuko. Sharp as always."

"You should have known I'd see right through you. You never did know your own limits – you put too much stock in your own abilities."

Fai didn't rise to the bait; instead, he produced a slip of paper from inside his cloak. "I've kept my oath. I was to report to the castle, as my duty. I've reported, and now I wish to go." Kurogane felt the pressure of magic working, and suddenly the Clow-façade was gone; Fai was there (black hair and all) and just as suddenly he leaned forward, slipping his hand around Kurogane's shoulders. "I've no wish to fight with you, Witch. I'll take my lover and go."

_"Lover!"_

"And you said _cousin,_" Yuko pouted. "A pack of liars, the lot of you. Just for that, Kurogane, I won't let you go."

"_I'm not his lover!"_

Yuko's eyes flashed as she grinned, delighted. Her arm stretched out, and the long pipe she was smoking rapped the ashtray smartly. A series of golden ripples spilled out, like visible vibrations, expanding toward them until Kurogane felt them pass right through their bodies. Fai's grip on his shoulder tightened; the golden rays were gone, but an ocean came surging up behind them, capped in white foam and stinging with salt. He reacted without thinking, leaning down and yanking Sakura up to him to save her from drowning. A thin pair of hands wrapped around his leg, and Kurogane gasped his last breath of air, squinting as Yuko seemed to recede in the distance, an island on a distant horizon, separated by an azure ocean –

- That _wasn't _an ocean. The wetness and the suffocation had been real, but it was all gone just as quickly as it had rushed upon him. The blue waters had calmed and turned into the sky itself, and now they were floating, suspended miles above the world in a place of twilight, caught between the real and the imagined world of the illusions Yuko had summoned.

Fai squeezed his shoulder, his body pressed close to him. Kurogane might have been able to enjoy the moment if not for the disorienting sense of weightlessness. "Don't look down!" Fai commanded. "You'll be dragged down if you do."

"You'd better listen to what he says." Yuko appeared again, her eyes twinkling with the authority of someone in complete control. "Fai knows quite a lot about flying. In fact, why I don't I show your lover what you _really _are?"

"I'm not – his – _lover!_"

The roar of the wind carried his words away. Yuko smiled, pursing her lips, and blew a long wisp of smoke at them. It grew and coiled around them like a snake that suddenly broke into multiple sections, each little patch twisting and turning in upon itself, becoming small caterpillars that unfurled into ethereal butterflies. The butterflies surrounded them, their wings fluttering as they circled, tighter, unbothered by the wind.

Sakura's grip on his leg tightened, but a sudden pain in his shoulder drew his attention. Glancing from the corner of his eyes, he watched as claws, thin and sharp enough to tear through his cloak, extended from Fai's slender fingers. Kurogane turned to him in alarm; the wizard was gritting his teeth, glaring at Yuko with a new anger that Kurogane had never thought he could possess, but it was his eyes that made his voice catch in his throat. The blue sapphires were gone, replaced by yellow, slit eyes, the eyes of a predator, and Fai was straining to both hold onto Kurogane and tear away from him, _fangs _biting into his own lips as he fought against the involuntary transformation. Dark blue feathers began to grow out of his skin, bursting through painfully as they worked their way up his collarbone to his neck.

Fai cried out, a sound of rage and pain, and made to launch through the veil of butterflies that had surrounded them.

"Fai, don't!" Kurogane grabbed both his arms, the claws dragging thin gashes through his clothes, scratching at the skin beneath. It was a trap – he _knew _it was a trap, and Fai probably knew, too, but blinded in his anger, he was falling right into it. The wizard fought against him, snarling, trying to push past him, and still Sakura clung to his leg, holding on for her life.

"If you want to die so badly, _I'll _kill you! Just – _stop!_"

Fai's eyes widened; Kurogane looked into them, feeling his struggles stop, and saw the reflection of Yuko in the wizard's eyes, drawing closer to the butterflies, raising that golden pipe like a weapon, preparing to strike –

It was almost like the first time they met: Fai's arms came around him, and wings suddenly expanded behind him, beating against Kurogane's face as they soared upward, his stomach dropping into his feet. Something nearly struck him – he felt it go flying right by his shoulder, tearing his cloak off his body, as they soared up.

The glass top of the arboretum shattered as they flew through it; a thousand shards of glass exploded into the air, dazzling them as they fell like rain drops, tinkling against the glass roof like little jewels, each reflecting the sun. Fai's wings retracted, growing smaller, the feathers in his body slipping back into his skin as they fell gently to the earth, the deadly claws sinking back into his fingers as they landed on the personal aircraft he had arrived on.

"Hold on tight!" Fai called.

Kurogane helped Sakura up, pushing her into the safety of the backseat. Something caught his attention from the corner of his eye; a black ball of fur was bounding to them, and before Kurogane could protest, it had made one grand leap onto the aircraft, landing squarely in Sakura's lap. She blinked down at it, unsure what to do. Before Kurogane could make a grab at it and toss it back out, Fai had turned the aircraft on, its wings lifting them into the air like a dragonfly.

For someone who liked his feet on the ground, he found himself doing a lot of flying, Kurogane thought. The ground lifted away as they gained a modest altitude; the details of the trees grew less and less distinct until the greenery was reduced to patches of color below them. The city stretched out, cobblestones and all, as they rose, following the roads below them out of Kingsbury.

"Kurogane, you sit up front." Fai moved around him, pressing him into the driver's seat. The wizard glanced at the backseat passengers, surprised by their presence. "Oh, Kuro-rin…you brought the whole gang along."

"It wasn't my idea," he grumbled.

Fai watched as the black Mokona stood up on the tips of its toes and kissed Sakura on the nose. She blushed. Fai struggled to appear displeased and at last admitted, "They're both sort of cute."

"_That _one is just Yuko's spy!" Kurogane jabbed a finger at it. Mokona turned and huffed at him, crossing its hands over its chest.

"Mokona is Mokona!"

"Yea, and you're lucky we're too high to throw you out without killing you!" He snapped back.

"I think it's best to keep you occupied – here, Kurogane. You steer."

"Eh?" Fai grabbed his hands, putting them on the wheel. "I don't know how the hell to steer this thing!"

"You'd better learn!" Fai beamed, pointing over his shoulder. "They're after us."

Kurogane didn't have to glance back to recognize the buzzing of the dragonfly aircrafts, but he did so anyways out of a sheer, willful optimism that _maybe, _just maybe, he was wrong.

He wasn't.

A small troop of the aircrafts were heading for them, as yet a good half mile behind, but catching up quickly.

"Don't worry about them." Fai smiled again, and once more, Kurogane felt angry: the wizard was clearly enjoying the thrill of the chase. "I'll tackle them! You fly straight to the castle in the Waste!"

"I don't know how to get there!" He'd come _out _through the castle to get to Kingsbury – the Waste could be an hour or a month away for all he knew.

"Don't worry." Fai reached forward; Kurogane froze as the wizard's hand brushed against his cheek, his fingers touching at his earlobe. _The earring_; it was so light, he had forgotten it was on. Fai leaned in toward him, and with the wind blowing his hair out of his face, Kurogane could see now that he, too, was wearing the earring's opposite. "The earring will guide you. It goes where it has the most memories – it will lead you to the castle and Mokona."

"Mokona?" The black Mokona's ears popped up, excited.

"The _other _Mokona," Fai added.

Kurogane heard a quiet noise, like the steady vibration of a harp string, and saw a faint glow out of the corner of his eye: the earring was emitting a light.

"Follow that light, and you'll be there by nightfall!" Fai pulled back, but as he did so, his fingertips came up, tracing the hard line where Kurogane's jaw had clenched.

"If you were just going to come to the palace yourself," he said, his voice angry in his displeasure, "Then why did you send me to see Yuko in the first place?"

Fai paused, surprised at his annoyance. His eyes shifted away; he brought both of his arms behind his back, as if searching for a good-enough lie, and finding none, settled on the embarrassing truth. "You being there already…gave me the courage for it. I couldn't have ever gone if I didn't know you were there." Fai gave an anxious laugh, rolling his eyes to try and mask his sincerity with a joke. "Yuko is just too terrible to face on my own! She's so _mean_!"

Kurogane stared at him, his expression still cloudy. The city had become a persistent blur; the dragonflies were getting closer, the buzzing louder now, and the wind was whipping fiercely at them. It was all he could do to keep a firm grip on the steering wheel so the damned aircraft would fly straight, but still he looked at the wizard and glared, demanding honesty in his silence.

Fai stared back at him; his vapid smile fell away into a small, tired, grateful one. His voice dropped to a whisper, barely audible above the engine. "You saved me, you know…I was in grave danger back there."

He shouldn't have done it, but his arm acted on its own accord. Kurogane reached out with his hand to touch his arm –

- And the ship spun out of control, careening down toward the city. Sakura and Mokona cried out, gripping the aircraft as he fought with the steering wheel just in time to stop them from colliding with the turret of a particularly tall bell tower. One of the aircraft's wings clipped the edge, and for a moment, the image of them crashing down into the streets below, a fiery ball of disaster in the middle of all those cars and people, flashed before his eyes.

He yanked the wheel to the left, hard, and the ship spun back up.

Fai had somehow managed to remain standing up right, gripping the back of the pilot's seat. He broke out into a laugh. "You're _good, _Kuro-pu_!_"

"Stop joking, you moron!"

"No, really – look!"

Kurogane glanced back; the ships had mistaken their dive for a valid gambit, never suspecting that they had nearly crashed out of sheer recklessness and not out of some clever plan to get away. A good half of the pilots barely managed to collide with the bell tower, resulting in a mess of dragonflies all struggling not to collide with each other as they avoided the building.

"We've got a lead now!" Fai's eyes sparkled. "I can give you five minutes of invisibility. Now's your chance!"

"What? Wait -!"

Fai brought his arm up in a sweeping gesture. Kurogane blinked, unsure if he was seeing double, and was surprised to find that he _was. _A second, mirage dragonfly, piloted by a fake Kurogane, sped off, the real Fai waving happily from behind him.

"_FAI!"_

The wizard gave him a mock salute, pointed off into the distance, and waved them away.

Kurogane was once again so distracted by the wizard that he barely managed to avoid driving the ship right into the top boughs of a tree. When he glanced back up, the fake aircraft – and Fai – was gone.

* * *

In the palace, Yuko watched, amused, as Watanuki struggled to disentangle her pipe from Kurogane's cloak. Finally, he tossed the whole thing at Doumeki in a fit of rage. Doumeki took one look at it and calmly removed it, passing the pipe back to Yuko.

He offered her the tray, but she shook her head, sighing in contented bliss. "That was the most fun I've had in ages!"

"_That's _your idea of _fun?_" Watanuki gawked at her.

Yuko ignored him, sinking back into the cushions. "I suppose Fai thinks he's escaped." She laughed at the absurdity of the idea. "His lover is _awfully _handsome."

Doumeki shot her a sideways glance. "Was he really his lover?"

Watanuki rounded on him, still angry over the pipe. "Why is that any of your business!"

"Knowing Fai…probably not," she conceded. Her gaze fell upon them both, omniscient and far-seeing. "But don't let his hair fool you. I can assure you this much: he is certainly _not _his cousin."

* * *

The aircraft managed to keep moving well into the night, its engine not so much as protesting as the winds grew, the sky darkened, and a driving rain began to pound at them. Kurogane couldn't see more than a foot ahead through the darkness, and the speed made the rain feel like tiny shards of glass, cutting at his skin. He was sure that somewhere in Piffle and Hanshin an empty courtyard and an empty office had been discovered, the doors knocked down by soldiers following Yuko's orders…but here, close to the Waste at least, Kurogane was safe. He glanced back; Sakura was huddled in the backseat, her body pressed forward in an effort to protect Mokona against the rain. He was still suspicious of them both, but they each had such a disarming air about them…it was harder to hold onto hatred than he thought.

The lights of a city suddenly glowed on the horizon – he knew only one city so close to the Waste.

"We're not far," he called back. "That's my hometown."

The black Mokona peeked out from between Sakura's arms. "Nice place!" It called.

"Don't try and be friendly," he shot back at it. "I don't trust you."

The rain lessened as they drew closer to the city; below, the lights twinkled in the darkness like a galaxy of stars, mirroring the night sky above. They passed over it, flying over the familiar river and train tracks, and for a moment, he allowed himself to glance back, to wonder what Tomoyo was doing just then…

He turned away resolutely and pushed onward, deeper into the Waste.

The night grew darker as he flew over the rocky Waste; by the time he could first make out the gossamer wing-like appendages that surrounded the castle, he was beginning to worry about Fai. He should have caught up by now…

The castle moved forward, its dragon-like feet scrambling over the rock, rushing toward them. He could see a figure on the top balcony, a young man with short brown hair.

Syaoran waved at him. "Kurogane!" He called.

"Syaoran, get off!" Syaoran stopped, confused. Kurogane yelled again, louder, afraid to take his hands off the wheel. "_I don't know to stop this goddamn thing!_"

Brown eyes widened; Syaoran darted inside the balcony, scrambling below…too late.

The dragonfly collided headlong into the bottom floor, slamming straight through the outer edifice as it crashed into the little living quarters below. Debris piled around them, and just as Kurogane was tossed off, he saw a chunk of wood go flying right at what appeared to be a white porkbun with ears. As the dust began to settle, he began to see the mess he had made: the guts of the castle, its pipes and fixtures, clattered about him in a massive mess of irreparable damage.

"Kurogane!" Syaoran was scrambling forward, tearing chunks of the debris to get to him, when he stopped.

A girl lay in the rubble, her body curled up tightly, protecting something that she held close to her. Two wide, green eyes opened slowly and stared at him. A steady blush rose in Syaoran's cheeks; Kurogane watched as it darkened…and darkened… and _darkened _yet again, until the poor boy was left standing stock-still, completely unable to move or blink as Sakura's face broke into a smile. She unfolded her arms, revealing the uninjured black Mokona, and held out a tentative hand.

Kurogane watched as Syaoran reached forward and helped her to her feet; the boy was doing a remarkable job of not breathing. He had begun to shift from one foot to the other in an uncomfortable silence, his eyes darting about in an effort to find the perfect words. Kurogane didn't particularly believe in love at first sight, or anything half that stupid…but, maybe, once in a great, grand while…something like that happened.

He slid down from the rubble, catching the boy's attention. Syaoran, grateful for the distraction, gulped in air and ran toward him.

"Kurogane – are you hurt?"

"Nah." He patted the dust off his clothes and followed Syaoran's gaze; his shirt had thin slices in it from Fai's claws. He jerked his hand back toward the hole he had made, complete with the jagged maze of ripped copper pipes. "Damned sharp," he said.

"You're _home!_" A tiny voice called.

"Yea, sure am," he grinned. He turned, readying himself for Mokona's inevitable leap at him…and received nothing. The white rabbit-thing had found the _other, _black rabbit-thing, and the two of them were clinging to each other, identical ears quivering in happiness. Kurogane let out a sigh of annoyance.

Syaoran stared at them. "Oh…there's another one. What's its name?"

"Mokona."

"…They're _both _Mokona…?"

Sakura stepped forward hesitantly. She smiled shyly, her eyes lifting to meet Syaoran's, then falling away. "Larg," she said, her voice still weak. "The black Mokona is named Larg. He told me when we were flying here."

Kurogane settled a level gaze on her. "And how'd you get him to say that?"

Her face flushed; her hands knit together, worried at his gruff tone. "I asked him why he wanted to come with us, and he said he wanted to see Seoul. I asked who that was, and he said she was the other Mokona. I just put two and two together, and…" She stopped talking. Kurogane had approached her and now stood, towering above her. She glanced up into his narrow, red eyes, and waited.

"…You're normal now, right?"

Her gaze fell to the floor. "Yes," she whispered. "And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry about what happened – about what I did. I wish I could take it back, but I can't –"

_Plunk._

Sakura blinked; Kurogane's fist rested harmlessly on her head. "That's all I need to know," he said.

* * *

The castle climbed higher into the Waste as the night drew on. Kurogane and Syaoran worked as best as they could to shove aside the debris; to his surprise, Sakura, despite the ordeal she had been through in the day, insisted on helping. It didn't take her long to grow tired from hauling heavy pipes and chunks of wood and stone. Eventually, Kurogane had found a couch under the mess and did his best to beat the dust off of it, fished a blanket down from upstairs, and picked the girl up from where she had curled asleep near the fire. He carried her to the couch and pulled the blanket over her. Larg came hopping over, wiggled into her arms, and fell asleep against her chest.

The work felt good; even though his whole body was tired, it was relieving to have a task to throw himself wholly into instead of just waiting for the wizard to return; the tightness in his chest felt like it had lessened. It was later yet by the time Syaoran crept upstairs to sleep; Kurogane dragged the mattress he had been using out from under the collapsed cubby hole and fell down on it, sighing. Fai still wasn't back yet…maybe he was being extra cautious, he thought, and closed his eyes. Seoul (it was hard to stop thinking of her as 'Mokona' in his head), sat by the fire, but whether or not she was awake, he couldn't tell. As far as he knew, he'd never really seen her with her eyes open.

He'd nearly fallen asleep when he heard the sound, the quiet whirr and click of the wheel changing above the door near the steps. Fai would be furious about his half-destroyed castle, but as long as he left the arguing for morning, Kurogane could deal with his wrath…

The smell reached him first, the metallic, coppery scent of fresh blood. The sound came second, the thick splashing of the liquid onto the floor. Kurogane opened his eyes just enough to see, by the wan light of the dying fire, a strange hybrid _thing _moving along the floor, not quite touching it, not quite there – ghostly in its outline, bloody footprints appearing below it.

Seoul's voice broke the silence, worried and thin. "Fai…you've gone too far…"

But Fai – if the thing really _was _Fai – didn't reply. It moved up the stairs in silence, disappearing into the dark.

Kurogane sat up, staring down at the floor. Each footprint had grown more distinct as the creature moved, the blood flowing faster with each new footstep, pouring out thicker. Feathers, once dark blue, were now black with the liquid. He picked one up and examined it, its silkiness now sticky with clotting blood. It singed suddenly, crisping up into fiery ash, and was gone.

He reached down and found a stump of old candle wax. Seoul didn't speak as he lit it in the fire. Kurogane followed the trail; long gashes of blood appeared on the stairs, as if a pair of wings had finally fallen, weary, behind their owner, too exhausted to hold them close, the feathers painting blood streaks along the banister and wall.

With each step, the smell grew thicker until the air reeked with the scent of blood. He came to Fai's door and paused, his throat tightening.

"Fai?"

No answer. He was already going to be angry about the mess downstairs – barging into his room in the middle of the night couldn't possibly make anything worse. Kurogane opened the door and stepped inside, pressing the candle into the dark.

The world of baubles had disintegrated away; the bedroom was gone, replaced by a dark tunnel that led down into a darkness where a wind was rushing, howling at him. It was as if the bedroom had folded in upon itself, curling into the cave: the toys, jewelry, and gems that had once decorated it now glittered like encrusted treasures in the tunnel wall as he moved inside, following it as it snaked impossibly deep into the building. It split after a few minutes, and Kurogane found himself faced with the choice of a fork in the road, two possible paths. He closed his eyes, listening for the sound of the wind: one tunnel led to the open air…and the other was shut completely.

_The wind. Follow the wind. _He opened his eyes. A sash of bright ribbon swayed from the tunnel's roof, blown by the wind. Following the direction, he veered left; the trinkets began to disappear from the tunnel's wall. It began to look more and more like the inner passage of a cave, rocky with dirt, until the last of the jewels disappeared entirely. Feathers, stuck to the wall with blood, now glimmered in the candle's light as the wind grew louder.

There, at the end of the tunnel, something was huddled in the darkness, gasping with the effort to breathe. The smell of blood was so strong now that it nearly blocked out his other senses, but still he forced his eyes to take in the sight, search it for answers. The massive, huddled form was covered in feathers that were stuck together, clotted with blood, and it rose and fell with each labored breath.

"Fai? Is that…is that you?"

The thing shuddered.

Kurogane stepped closer to the creature, his heart beating faster. "Are you hurt? Are you in pain –"

"_Stay away_." The words came out in a low, dangerous growl, but the voice, thick in its agony, was still unmistakable: Fai.

Kurogane took another step forward; he could almost reach out and touch him now. "I want to help you." His voice was calm, and he found himself speaking things he knew he shouldn't. "I know you have a contract with Mokona. I want to help you break it – you don't have to be like this."

The creature pulled itself up; its face was still hidden, but now the candlelight caught the glint of those claws and fangs from before. Kurogane peered at it, trying to make sense – he remembered the dream he had had, of the blue swallow, half-human and yet half bird, graceful and elegant as it sailed through the sky…_that _was not a monster. Maybe Fai wasn't entirely human; he was a wizard, after all, but Kurogane could accept that. That flying, free creature was just some part of him, some aspect of his soul that he could embrace and let transform him, like magic, and then sail away into the sky…but _this _thing…this was different. The yellow eyes, the claws…this was some other, darker part of Fai that he could no longer control. Maybe once he had been able to keep it locked up, maybe once he had kept this part of him in check with something, but now it was competing with his other half, that beautiful bird, and the result was a chimera neither man nor bird but _beast_, monstrous and dangerous.

It snarled in derision at him, rearing above him. "_You _want to help _me?_" Jaws snapped, and the faint firelight bounced off bloody fangs. "You only want to break _your _curse."

"That's not true, idiot!" His voice rose to match the monster's. "And…and I…" His throat tightened, and for some reason, an image flashed through his mind: Syaoran, his eyes falling upon Sakura, frozen to the spot, unable to breathe or speak or move because a feeling, demanding and uncompromising, had gripped him like a bolt of lightning, promising that his life would never be the same. Kurogane knew what he wanted to say, but it seemed so foolish – they'd only known each other for a few days, less than a week…and even if it took Syaoran the whole of half a second to fall in love with someone he'd never met before, that didn't mean that it would be any easier for him to say it out loud, someday. It didn't matter who you were or what the circumstances were – _I love you _was never an easy thing to say.

The beast snorted in disgust at his silence. "Too late," it snarled, and a pair of wings suddenly unfurled above it, flapping furiously. Kurogane's arms flew up to protect his face from the sudden gale of feathers that flew at him; the creature leapt up, outward into the rushing wind, leaving him in the darkness.

_"FAI!"_

* * *

The sound of rushing water startled him out of his sleep. Kurogane sat up sharply, staring down at the mattress; it was soaked through where his head had been. He reached up and wiped away cold sweat. Another nightmare, then…but it had seemed so real.

Kurogane turned to Seoul; she and Larg were alternatively blowing into the fire. "Fai's back?"

"Uh-huh!" Larg blew harder, his ear twitching in the direction of the shattered hole. "And you didn't break _enough _of the pipes! It's a lot of work to heat water!"

Seoul came bounding over to him, landing in his lap. "Kurogane…are you any closer to figuring out Fai's contract?"

He looked down at the tiny creature and sighed; she sounded genuinely worried. He could feel her trembling and patted her head affectionately, but she pressed on. "You've got to figure it out soon…you're both running out of time."

"Yea, I know." He had half a mind to ask her about last night – she had been in the dream, at least momentarily, and could confirm if it was real, and yet…maybe it was better not to know. It was still too vivid and raw to talk about, but he could come close. "Tell me this: is it true that Fai's going to turn into a monster?"

Seoul's white ears fell down sadly. "Did Yuko tell you that?"

"How do you know Yuko?"

"I make contracts on _behalf _of Yuko."

Kurogane's mind worked, adding this up in his head. The scales of "enemy" and "friend" had become all muddled. The Witch he had hoped to kill was now sleeping quietly on the couch to the left of him. "So…you _work _for Yuko?"

"Well, now I work for Fai."

He resisted the urge to toss her into the fire (_if she was going to betray us, she would have done it already, _he thought, and surely Fai _knew _about her relationship with Yuko) and returned to the topic at hand. "Yea, Yuko mentioned it. Is it true?"

"I'm not really supposed to say…"

Kurogane fell silent, thinking. There had been lots of clues, but it was like grasping at straws, trying to add them all up. "You said you grant wishes…for a price. So Fai had a wish, and he paid for it. To have his wish fulfilled, he received _you…_and the castle, I guess. So he paid Yuko, really."

Seoul nodded.

"But whatever he paid kept him from becoming…whatever it is he's becoming." He fell quiet again, his thoughts racing. "And it was a fair trade, something that can be traded _back _to him, as long as he's willing to give back you and the castle to Yuko."

Seoul shook her head. "It doesn't matter if he's willing – the stipulation was that he couldn't tell anybody, and that if anyone figured it out, we'd have to trade back. Oh…" Seoul grabbed her ears with her little paws. "I don't think I was supposed to say that…"

"Yea, well, I won't tell the Witch if you don't." He snorted and picked her up so that he could look at her levelly. "So, I just need to figure out what he traded, and he'll get it back. He'll be safe, you'll wish that my curse is removed, and you'll pay for it with all the time you've spent serving Fai."

"Uh huh, but…" She leaned up on her toes, touching his nose with her two paws. "_You _have to hurry, Kurogane. Fai has longer than you. Not much…but…"

"Hey…shit…cut that out!" Little tears had collected at the corners of her eyes. "I'll be fine, just watch. Come on…stop cryin' or I'll throw you out the hole." He jerked his head at the missing wall. "I wonder how bad it actually is…"

* * *

It was terrible.

Kurogane stood outside in the early morning hours, gazing up at the side of the castle where the ship had crashed through. If he worked for three days straight, he might be able to fix it just in time before the curse caught up with him and…

He sighed and turned away, gazing back in the direction of the city. The Waste was covered in a foggy cloudbank; only the tallest mountains were visible in the distance.

A plunking sounded; his mouth twitched into a grin, and before he could turn and greet it, the scarecrow had come to his side.

"Hey."

It bounced up and down; he got the sense that it was trying to cheer him up.

Kurogane looked down at his ragged, dirty clothing, up at the half-destroyed castle, and out at the gray morning. "It'll get better, Turnip," he muttered. "It sure as hell can't get any worse."

* * *

Getting the crashed dragonfly out of the hole in the castle turned out to be trial and a half. Kurogane had thought the hard part of the clean-up was done; he discovered he was woefully wrong.

Syaoran and Larg were outside with the scarecrow, a long rope stretching up from the top of the hole all the way down to the ground. The dawn had broke, scattering the fog, giving them at least a little light to make their work easier. Turnip had allowed the rope to be wound around his stick body in an effort to be useful. Syaoran stood behind him, gripping it, ready to pull. Larg sat on his shoulder, cheering them on.

"Ready, Kurogane!"

"Alright, kid," he called down. "Here goes…!" He pushed as hard as he could, the metal scraping against the torn up wood flooring, but all of the broken bits of the aircraft caught on the equally broken parts of the castle, clinging onto it. Kurogane shoved harder; below, Syaoran and the scarecrow pulled, but their combined effort proved useless after a quarter of an hour of trying.

"Piece of shit!" Kurogane kicked the thing as hard as he could, cursing its existence.

The engine sputtered to life angrily, the broken wings buzzing. It began to spin and shake wildly, creating a new mess as it tumbled outside the hole, crashing to the ground below. Propelled by its broken wings, it tore up the grass, leaping toward Syaoran with the last of its life.

Turnip leapt, its top hat spinning, and began _plunking _to save its life right behind Syaoran and Larg. The three of them made it just behind a rock outcropping before the engine exploded with a ghastly display of smoke, falling still.

Kurogane watched as Syaoran and Larg broke into a cheer; he had the odd feeling the scarecrow was cheering in its own way, or at least, that's what it looked like: it was bobbing up and down as it spun, the happy, permanent smile on its face somehow sincere.

"I can't believe he calls this a castle." Kurogane sighed and turned away, back into the interior. "More like a goddamn junk heap at this point." Everything was ruined – all of his hard cleaning work had been for nothing. He grabbed a broom and began sweeping at the dust; anything to occupy himself.

Occasionally he glanced outside; the scarecrow took turns chasing Syaoran and Larg. They looked so happy…he frowned. What would happen to them if Fai were to lose his fight against the monster inside him…?  
"Kurogane?"

He looked up. Sakura appeared around a particularly large pile of junk. She'd found an apron in the kitchen and put it on. "I made everyone lunch. I hope you don't mind, I just wanted to help…somehow. Could you please call them?"

They were all seated at what was left of the kitchen table, eating sandwiches (Syaoran had managed a timid, "It's delicious," then promptly stared at his plate after Sakura blushed, smiled, and thanked him) when Fai came running down the stairs.

Kurogane was thankful he hadn't been eating anything; he might have choked at the sight of the wizard.

"Look! I fixed my hair!"

Kurogane didn't care if his hair was fuchsia (it wasn't; it had returned to the same blonde as the day he met him). He stared at Fai, unable to look away. The wizard was wearing a pair of _remarkably _tight black pants that laced up above his hips, extenuating his graceful legs, and a white, flowy shirt that hung loosely off his frame. It dipped in the front, exposing his collarbone. It was simple…and dizzyingly attractive.

"Well, what do you think, Kuro-pu?"

Kurogane blinked at him, swallowed, and managed a late, "Welcome home."

Syaoran saved him. "Master Fai – we've got some new guests. I was wondering…if maybe…they could stay…?"

Fai walked over to the table. He stared openly at Sakura, who once again flushed and folded her hands in her lap.

"You're the former Witch of the Waste."

"Y-yes," she stammered. "Wizard Fai…thank you for letting me stay in your home. I'm sorry for all the trouble I caused you, previously…please let me make it up to you…"

Fai stared at her, then turned to the fire, where Seoul sat next to Larg.

"So, Mokona, an ex-witch…and a copy-cat. Why'd you let them in?"

"Mokona is _Seoul _now that the other Mokona is here!"

The black one spoke up. "_This _Mokona is Larg."

"And I didn't let them in – they blew in with Kurogane!"

Fai burst into laughter. He spun around on his boots, his hands resting on his hips. "That sounds like Kuro-tan – _dramatic._" He walked over to the gaping hole in the castle, sizing up the mess. "_Wheeeeeeeet-woo_."

Kurogane came out of his daze. "Did you just…make the _sound _for whistling?"

Fai ignored him; his brow knit together, and his head cocked to the side. Another visitor stood in the hole, staring back at him.

"So you're the scarecrow Mokona…well, Seoul, I guess now…told me about." The scarecrow spun around in affirmation. Fai peered at it closely, studying it, genuinely puzzled. "You're under _quite _a spell, friend." He turned back to the group at the table, his shoulders lifting in a shrug. "Seems everyone in our little family is complicated…eh, Kuro-daddy?"

"_What _did you just call me!"

Fai clapped his hands together brightly. The breeze blew in, lifting his newly-blonde hair away from his face. "This is going to be a busy day! We're _moving!_"

"So?" Kurogane shoved his plate away. "We've _always _been moving."

Syaoran shook his head. "No, not like that. He means we're going to move the _interior._"

Fai nodded. "Yuko can track us down in no time, but…" He turned back around to the scarecrow. "I'm afraid you'll have to stay behind. The magic in your spell is too powerful – it might interfere with what I'm going to do, and I'm afraid to risk it for everyone's safety. Whatever spell you're under, it's more advanced than anything I'm used to…" Although nothing about the scarecrow changed, Kurogane got the distinct impression that it slumped somehow. Dejected, it compliantly hopped outside.

* * *

Kurogane watched as Fai pulled a paint box along the gravel outside, forming a large, white circle, big enough to enclose the castle.

Fai looked up at him, waving. "Take it away, Seoul!" Inside, the castle lurched as it took a few steps forward and complacently settled inside the array, waiting.

The wizard dashed back up the bottom steps, climbing up into the decimated downstairs. Fai held a bit of chalk in his hand; Kurogane stiffened as he watched the wizard crouch down, balancing smartly on the tips of his boots. He leaned down, creating a second, smaller array on the inside of the castle, rich with details: within the circle, eight smaller circles clustered around a ninth in the center, where an open eye was surrounded by the phases of the moon. The front flap of Fai's shirt hung loosely down, revealing his skin; Kurogane, standing above him, did his best not to look down at his chest or his pale, lean form…and failed.

"Excellent!" Fai sprang up, rocking back on his heels. He tossed the chalk out the hole in the castle, clapped his hands free of the dust, and held them out. Seoul jumped up into his open palms, her ears twitching. "Now, everyone else – stay right where you are!"

Fai walked to the middle of the circle, placed Seoul in the middle, and waited, a grin splashed across his face. "Here we go!"

Kurogane watched as Syaoran, his face red and his eyes locked resolutely ahead of him, slipped a protective arm around Sakura's waist.

Seoul began to glow softly, her body lifting into the air. Two orbs of light appeared on either side of her, stretching and taking form as they opened wide, suspending her between a magnificent pair of wings. The creature opened her mouth, sucking in the air, and the world began to rush around them in colors and sounds. Doors that didn't exist slammed shut, cabinets popped back into place, the wood stretched across the floor stained itself different colors; windows appeared with new, cut glass, and the great, gaping hole suddenly sucked itself shut with a loud _pop! _that left him staring, mystified. New furniture, clean and dust-free, dropped out of nowhere, landing harmlessly on the new floor, until the entire, squalid sitting parlor had transformed in the bottom floor of a cozy townhouse.

Mokona's mouth closed; the wind stopped, and the glowing wings folded themselves neatly together, disappearing in a shimmer of light.

"And, _we're moved! _You can all explore now!" Fai rested his hands on his hips, satisfied.

Syaoran gawked at the new interior. "You've really outdone yourself, Master Fai…"

"It's so…pretty…" Sakura's hands came up to her face, her eyes wide. Even the new home's details had been arranged: soft curtains hung from the windows, teacups decorated with curling vines were stacked neatly in polished curio, and oil paintings of faraway places hung in gilded frames.

Fai grinned. "Well, if we're going to have a lady staying with us, I figured a bit of a feminine touch would be nice. Right, Kuro-chi?"

He didn't answer; he had glanced out the window in the kitchen, his heart stopping, as Syaoran, Sakura, and the Mokonas began exploring the new home.

A familiar train was crawling through a familiar city, its shrill cry piercing the air as it let out a plume of familiar black smoke.

He walked over to it, lifting the curtain aside, his mind numb. "This is…"

Fai came up behind him, his face permanently etched in a gleeful smile. "Look!" He grasped the handle of a door that had never been there before, swinging it open. "I added a new bathroom, for our growing family!" He spun on his heel and went running off, his excitement building. "Come here, I have something to show you!"

Kurogane stood, watching the smoke linger in the sky.

"Kuro-tan! Come quick!"

He managed to find the will power to tear himself away from the window, following the sound of Fai's voice. He'd run away from this place in an effort to break his curse…and now he was back here again…

"Look." Fai was beaming at him, once again turning a doorknob that had never been there before. "I added a new bedroom, too." When Kurogane stood, unmoved in the doorway, Fai slipped behind him and shoved him inside to the call of "Go on, go _in!_"

It was exactly like his bedroom above the shop, complete with a long work table that bordered a window with a view of the city, only now a wardrobe had been added, its doors open with clean, crisp clothes – nearly all black.

Kurogane turned to him, his expression unreadable. "How…" he began, and stopped. _How _wasn't important – _how _was answered by a world of magic he didn't need to know about, and as to how Fai knew what his room looked like…that was a whole other world of answers that Kurogane wasn't sure he was ready for. "_Why?_" He finally managed.

Fai's smile fell some; his eyebrows furrowed, puzzled at Kurogane's less than exuberant reaction. He leaned against the doorway, his long legs crossing at the ankles. "I thought you would like it…do you?"

Kurogane wasn't sure how to answer; he knew, on one hand, that it was meant as a nice gesture, and yet…he had been beginning to doubt if he could ever come back to this place. For all its mess and chaos, there was something exciting and charming about the messy castle. This felt like a step backwards somehow, like an effort to rehabilitate him back into a life of normalcy.

It felt like goodbye.

"Yea. It's great." His voice was flat.

Fai didn't notice; his eyes brightened and he stood up straight again, pointing at the doorway. "I got you some new clothes, too! All black, of course – wouldn't want Kuro-pu to wear anything _too _flamboyant…but check them out later! Next –" He was out the door in a run, his boots pounding on the floor. "Kuro-coo, come on! You're so _slow! _I've got something else to show you!"

Kurogane stared back at the city again; it felt like a dream to be back in this room, watching the green hills rise just beyond the tiled houses at the edge of the city, stretching up into the white-capped mountains – mountains that, once, he had rode over in a castle with legs…

He walked heavily down the hallway, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, listening. Syaoran had thrown open the side door, running out. He could hear him eagerly pointing out new things to Sakura.

"Look, there's a courtyard!"

And if there was a courtyard, there would also be…

"And a shop!" Sakura's voice floated in on the breeze, excited. "What should we sell?"

"Kuro-tan!"

He stopped walking; Fai stood near the front door, gripping the wheel to change the colors and lead them to a new location. The blue on the dial was gone, replaced by a patch of yellow. "See the new color?" Fai was antsy; Kurogane got the impression that everything had been leading up to this. "There's a new exit. I'd like to show you…it's…a gift. My gift to you," he finished, smiling too wide to conceal his anxiety.

The familiar whirring sounded, and then the door opened.

Kurogane walked out with him, pausing to take it all in. The townhouse was gone, left behind in the city, a good mile away. They had emerged from a small shelter, a tiny, one room hideaway used for storage or safety from storms. The house itself was unremarkable: the world it was hidden in was breathtaking.

A meadow stretched on and on toward the very base of the mountain range, interrupted only by patches of sparkling lakes and rivers. Kurogane had watched Tomoyo sit and painstakingly embroider every sort of flower upon her tailored dresses; the meadow contained at least double all of the species she had ever sewed. Black-eyed Susans competed with the sun for golden brilliance, pansies of all variations crouched low among the greenery, their faces splashed with purples and blues and pinks of all shades. Blue bells hung like tiny, nectar-laden trumpets, and poppies, fiery red, were scattered among them all. He knew only a handful of their names, like the daffodils, yellow with thick, green stalks, their petals open like bursting stars, but the lack of knowing didn't diminish their beauty. It was as if a painter had chosen the countryside as his canvas, and each new brushstroke had sprung a new patch of flowers into life until the whole world was awash in color.

Fai watched him carefully, waiting for some reaction. When none came, his smile grew wider, masking his insecurity. "Eh, I didn't think you'd like it, Kuro-pu. It's not exactly masculine, it's just sort of…nothing, I suppose…"

When he spoke, Kurogane's voice came from somewhere far away. "It's peaceful."

Fai looked up, his breath catching; the vapid, empty grin fell away into its smaller, sincere version. "It's my secret garden," he whispered. "Here – I'll show you."

A hand slipped through his, the fingers intertwining, pulling him forward. Kurogane allowed himself to be led away from the tiny house, down into the meadow. The flowers clustered around him as he walked, disturbing them with his steps. Each movement lifted their scent into the air, perfuming the breeze.

"Did you do this with your magic?"

"Only a little – I _swear_," he protested; Kurogane had scowled. "Just enough to help the flowers make it through bad weather."

They crossed over a small stream until they came to a stop in the middle of the meadow. It was an unbelievable sight; he felt the sudden urge to lie down, close his eyes, breathe in the world and let the sunlight surround him… His fear and his worries from earlier disserted him, replaced by a deep tranquility that he had felt, for a moment, at the lake shore. "It's beautiful," he breathed, wondering how he had lived so close to such a stunning place and never discovered it. He had never really left the shop, rarely lifted his eyes from steel to look out and see the world.

He became aware that he was still holding Fai's hand; he squeezed it experimentally, and the wizard smiled, eyes the color of the sky turning to him.

He was too much to look at; Kurogane pulled away and moved close to the edge of a small lake, staring down into the water. There, reflected in its clear depths, he saw himself – dirty, clothes torn, shoulders slouched, eyes rimmed with red from lack of sleep…smiling. He had to squint just to see the dark wings of the curse, tiny and almost gone entirely, in the middle of his chest. They grew and shrunk, he now knew – maybe Fai knew that, too, and that was why he had given him a peaceful place to rest his wearied soul. After all, the wizard had somehow known what his bedroom looked like; might he not know about his curse, too? _What if it wasn't a dream…don't think about it, not here in this place…_

"Kurogane."

He turned to face him. Fai's expression had fallen away into one as unreadable as his own; he held out his hand again. "Would you come with me?"

Kurogane took it, walking with him up a hill richly arranged with clusters of violet hyacinths. "Look," Fai said, pointing. There, from the top of the hill, he could look down and see a little country home sitting just above a river, a small mill churning away peacefully at its side.

"That's my favorite hideaway." Fai's voice was quiet, remembering something Kurogane couldn't see, and yet Kurogane felt a strange nostalgia move in him for a place he had never been to before. "It feels familiar…"

"I lived there alone, after I ran away from home," Fai said. Kurogane gave him a puzzled look; he smiled sadly and shrugged, as if to brush his concern away. "I was always the type of person who could never stay in one place – all I wanted to do was leave home and never go back."

"Was it so bad?"

"No!" Fai shook his head, and by his adamancy, Kurogane knew he was being honest. "It was wonderful. I lived with my brother; our uncle raised us. He loved us like his own sons, and above everything else in the world, he wanted us to be happy. That's why, when I ran away…he never came looking for me, because he knew it was what I wanted. Did you know, even if you're born a twin, whoever comes out first is shouldered with all the responsibility? It was just too much…I just wanted to fly away and be free…" Fai spoke more to himself now, his eyes swimming, lost in his memory. Kurogane listened raptly; Fai had a brother, a twin, and he had ran away from somewhere to escape responsibility – that definitely sounded like the truth…

Kurogane pulled away. Fai blinked and came back to himself, staring up at him. "What's wrong, Kuro-tan?"

"How many times in your life have you run away?"

Fai smiled. "It's hard to keep count!"

"I'll bet." Kurogane pointed at the cottage over his shoulder, his voice wry. "I have a feeling that if I go in there and come back outside, you'll be gone."

Blue eyes narrowed. "Of course not, I –"

"You're a liar." Kurogane stepped forward, gripping him by the shoulders. Fai stared up at him, wide-eyed now, his mouth open in surprise. "There's a lot about yourself that you haven't told me. A lot, I think, you don't plan to ever tell. That's fine – it's your past. All I want to know is the truth: there's something happening to you, and you're losing your fight against it. Yuko said as much. Tell me the _truth_…are you turning into some sort of monster?"

Kurogane watched as Fai's expression shifted, like a mask slowly being glued and stitched together. His eyes sparkled, his smile widened, and he stepped backward, letting Kurogane's hands fall down at his sides, away from him. "Of course not, don't be ridiculous!"

"You're planning a departure."

"I'm _planning _on making it so you can all live comfortably!" He turned his back on him, exasperated. "Sakura will love it here – she's sweet. I knew her, once, although she won't remember because of the spell she was under, but she and Syaoran could stay here and open a flower shop. They're too young yet, they'll need someone to look after them – and the Mokonas, too. Seoul really likes you, Kuro-tan!"

"And meanwhile, what will happen to you?"

Fai turned to him, his façade crumbling. "Nothing," he lied. "I'll just be out of everyone's way. I don't want to hurt anyone –"

"You won't have to worry about hurting me, at least," he said, a sudden pain in his chest tightening. "Despite what you want, I won't be here to look after Sakura or the kid or the rabbits – you're not the only one fighting a losing battle."

"You'll win." Fai's voice was low. "Kurogane, I promise you: you will survive this."

So he _did _know, the bastard…Kurogane let out cynical laugh. "The good thing about being so close to death is that it lets you see what really matters in life – too late, though."

Fai stared at him, the silence stretching between them, until he turned suddenly, staring off into the distance. Kurogane heard it before he saw it, the humming of an aircraft carrier. He squinted off toward the mountains in the distance, catching the shimmer of sunlight off the metallic hull. Mechanical wings moved in order, propelling the massive carrier along at the very end of the valley.

Fai's voice was dark. "Why is that thing flying here?"

Kurogane took in the details, sizing it up. "Looks like a battleship."

His words came out in a hiss. "No doubt on its way to burn cities and people."

"Can't tell who it belongs to – the enemy's? Or ours?"

"What different does it make?"

It was moving at a clipping pace toward them, its wings disturbing the flowers with the unnatural wind generated by its propellers. Fai's voice, quiet and furious, cursed over the sound of its engine. "_Murderers._"

He did it compulsively without thinking; Kurogane slipped an arm around Fai's waist and pulled him close. The wizard was shaking with rage. The ship passed over them, and as they looked up, they could see that its belly was full of bombs, prepped and ready for launching.

Beside him, Fai's hand stretched up. Kurogane turned to stop him, watching the wizard's eyes narrow and flash from blue to yellow, the pupil contracting into a vertical slit. He passed his hand through the air as if cutting through the ship with a knife, and suddenly a plume of smoke came out of the back engine, and red, emergency lights began flashing. The ship's progress halted, the side wings propelling in circles to allow it to hover and address its malfunction.

"Did you do that?"

Fai pulled away from him, clutching his arm protectively behind him. "Oh, I was just tinkering." A half-hearted smile appeared, lop-sided and poorly constructed. "Don't worry, it won't crash."

"Fai…" Kurogane drew closer and gently pulled his arm out from behind him; the wizard winced, trying to draw away, but he gripped it carefully, his face pulling down into a frown. Dark blue feathers had sprouted painfully out of the skin, but worse, Fai's fingernails had stretched into the razor claws that Kurogane recognized. Fai's arm was shaking; the wizard had broken into a cold sweat, his other, good hand still gripping it just above the elbow, trying to stop the transformation from spreading. The two forms – the free, soaring bird, and the monster of claws and fangs – were struggling to emerge from within him…and Fai was losing the battle.

"Uh-oh, Kuro-rin." Fai smiled weakly, looking up at the sky. "Looks like they're on to us."

It was like watching a scene from his dream: the ship suddenly expelled insect-like monsters with buzzing wings, their jaws filled with jagged fangs. They took off in a swarm, heading for him.

"Time to run!" Fai wrenched his hand away, his long legs carrying him forward. "Move those legs, Kuro-tan!"

Kurogane ran with him; Fai grinned, fell back, and suddenly wings tore out of his clothes, spreading behind him as he lifted into flight. Two clawed hands gripped him, carrying him back toward the little shelter they had emerged from, lifting him into the air –

"Hurry inside!"

"Fai, don't let go of me, _you bastard!_"

Kurogane crashed through the doorway on the lower stairs of their new home, the door swinging shut behind him, the colored wheel spinning automatically.

The door opened again suddenly; Syaoran and Sakura stood, their arms filled with groceries.

"Kurogane…what happened?"

He rubbed his backside furiously. "_I've had it with this goddamn place!_"

* * *

Sakura had thought he was going to actually leave; Syaoran knew better. He waited for Kurogane's anger to deplete, and once it had, they had dinner together quietly, sunset drawing down into twilight until, eventually, they had all made their way to their separate rooms, all except Sakura, who had stayed downstairs to do the dishes.

She had fallen asleep on the couch; Kurogane sighed and picked her up, carrying her upstairs. Fai had gone to the trouble of making them all rooms; might as well use them.

He had just pulled the blanket over Sakura when Syaoran's head appeared in the doorway, flustered.

"There she is. I was worried, I didn't hear her come up…"

"She's fine, go to bed."

They stood for a moment, staring at each other, until Syaoran cleared his throat. "Kurogane…don't worry about Fai. Sometimes he's gone for days on end, and…" He stopped, saw Kurogane's expression, and fell silent. They said their goodnights, and Kurogane watched him go.

He was about to step out of the room himself when Sakura's voice, tired but clear, reached him.

"He's in love."

"Eh?" He stopped, glancing back at her. Her green eyes were open, her hair mussed up from a day of running and work, cheeks a little too red, but she smiled kindly.

"Yea, Syaoran really likes you."

"_Syaoran?_" She blushed suddenly, as if the thought had never occurred to her. "Oh! No, I meant Fai."

Kurogane froze. "What gave you a crazy idea like that?"

"You can't tell?" She waited until he walked rigidly back over and sat on the bed, staring at her. "The way he did all this…it was as if he was lonely, wasn't it, and now he's got a houseful of people. Didn't you hear him call us a family? I don't even deserve to be here, and he even made a room for me." Her voice was soft, full of regret, but she moved on, ignoring her own secret pains. "But I heard him, when he was showing you around. The way he kept calling your name, he was so excited –"

"He was excited about the new stuff."

"No." She shook her head against the pillow, and when she spoke again, her tone was convinced. "He's in love."

He crossed his arms over his chest in defiance. "Yea, well, don't count on it."

"Um…" She sat up a little bit, and her face flushed again. "Were you being serious, about Syaoran…?"

He rolled his eyes. "It's _obvious._"

Now the flush progressed until her whole face was red; she laughed quietly, embarrassed at the revelation, and a little bit hopeful, too. "I guess that makes us the same then, you and I. Both of us can't see what's obvious."

He opened his mouth to protest again when a sound rent the night, high and wailing.

Sakura sat up, alarm flashing across her features. "Kurogane, what is that?"

"Air raid siren." He stood up quickly, moving to the window. "Doesn't look like it's for here, though. Don't worry about it."

"Between the war and Yuko…Fai must be under a lot of stress. You, too…"

"I said don't worry about it." He gave a grunt of annoyance and moved toward the door, shutting off her bedroom light. "Go to sleep."

The last thing he did before he went to bed was send Seoul up to sleep with her, giving her something to hold onto.

* * *

He was dreaming again, or perhaps none of the dreams had been dreams at all: maybe hanging around magic all the time had rubbed off on him, and his dreams weren't dreams but _visions_…

He hoped not.

The landscape exploded with the fiery blossoms of bombs crashing into the ground; death clung to the air, acrid and thick, as smoke blocked out even the light of the stars. Each new bomb crashing into the world was accompanied by the scream of its descent until, with an earsplitting burst, it exploded and left a chaos or orange and reds, heat and burning flesh.

A massive fleet of aircraft bombers was moving across the land like a poison, steeping it with fire…and a lone figure, a bird the color blue so dark is was nearly black, soared among them, lost among the darkness.

* * *

Kurogane stood in the courtyard, watching the city empty out before him. Fai hadn't come back in the night, and the morning had turned now to the afternoon, and there was still no sign of him. Meanwhile, the papers had reported that the town over from them had been destroyed, and an evacuation had been called for. It wasn't mandatory – _yet_ – but still, it seemed as if all of the city, all of the people he had watched out of his bedroom for years, had packed their lives into rucksacks, suitcases, carts, and bags. Whatever they could carry or shove into the trunk of a car came with them, and now he sighed as the progression marched on, people shouting at one another to move along. The streets were becoming so congested that evacuation would be nearly impossible soon.

The sight sickened him; he was sitting at the kitchen table an hour later when Syaoran came running in. "Kurogane – a car just pulled up, there's a stranger here. I tried to stop her, but she insisted –"

His chair scooted back as he rose: Souma stood in the doorway, her mouth slightly open in disbelief, staring at him.

"Kurogane…"

He nearly burst out laughing; she was clearly trying to resist the impulse to run over and hug him. She wasn't one for great displays of emotion, but that didn't mean that she didn't feel as much as the next person. She fought for her composure and won, her face remaining carefully blank.

"Souma." He approached her, grinning. Syaoran politely excused himself.

"I searched for you." Her eyes, hard and accusing, pierced him. "You think I'd just let you disappear like that? It'd be one thing if _I _kicked you out, but still, I…where have you _been_?"

"You wouldn't believe me."

"Probably not." Her gaze swept around the room in amazement, taking in all of its finery. "This is where you live now? You've been here this whole time…?"

"Not the whole time. Just got here, actually."

She walked over to the kitchen, her hand resting against the wallpaper, tracing its design. "_You _would never decorate like this…" She gasped; her hand flew to her mouth, spinning around at him. "You…oh my _god,_" she breathed. "I understand now – why you left. You _eloped. _You've gotten married." She sank down weakly into a kitchen chair, laughing. "And I was so _worried. _What's he like? Is he a wonderful man? He must be rich, to own all this –"

"I'm not _married!_" He stopped mid-rampage, glaring at her. "And what would make you think I'd marry a _guy_!"

"Why _else _would you elope? I wouldn't judge you, you know."

"Listen, _damn it, _I did _not _elope–"

"What's he like?"

Kurogane paused, fuming, and steadied himself, letting his body relax. "He's in trouble," was all he offered.

Souma's eyes sparkled. "I knew it. So you won't be coming back, then? No…I can see it in your eyes. You're happy here. Fine, don't come back to work for me, but your exit was so dramatic…don't ever try to pull anything like that again." Her bossy air had come back, sharp and demanding. "And _don't _go much longer without seeing your sister. Tomoyo has a way of knowing when things are wrong. Go and see her as soon as you can – and stop by some time, you big _idiot. _And bring the guy – I'd like to meet him."

"Yea, I will," he promised. She stood up, hesitated, and held out a formal hand. He shook it, grinning at her. "Now get out of my house."

"I'll be back – with Tomoyo!" She called.

The door shut behind her, and Kurogane watched as she climbed into a car, motioning for the driver to pull away.

* * *

Inside the vehicle, Souma wrung her hands in her lap, cringing. A silent, brooding man who had introduced himself as Doumeki drove her.

"You'll tell the Witch Yuko that I did as I was told?"

He nodded. She sighed in relief and shuddered as a new sense of self-loathing crept upon her. "Then take me back to my shop quickly. Oh, Kurogane…" She glanced back through the side mirror; she could just make out his tall frame in the window. "Forgive me."

* * *

Syaoran joined him in the kitchen first, glancing at him as he continued to stare out the window.

"That was someone from your past, wasn't it?"

Kurogane turned to face him, nodding. "The whole city is running away. Soon the entire place will be empty."

The boy's eyes, intense, watched him. "Do you want to run away, too?"

"Part of me does," he answered truthfully. "But I ran away from his place once already. I won't do that again."

"This place…this town? Or this castle?"

"Doesn't look like much of a castle to me from in here." Syaoran didn't even crack a smile; Kurogane sighed. "_Both._ Don't look at me so seriously – I'm not going anywhere."

Syaoran relaxed. "I'm glad. You've changed everything for us, you know."

"Come off it – your girlfriend will hear you."

Syaoran stopped mid-sentence, his face suddenly red; Sakura had run down the stairs, greeting them. She was wearing a new, pink sundress tailored with white ribbons and yellow flowers that grew together along them, flowing up the center pleats to form a neat pattern. Without realizing how he knew it, he was certain Tomoyo had made that dress; Fai had pulled everything he needed for his castle's new interior from the town. Maybe someday he could introduce Sakura to Tomoyo…they would probably make good friends.

"What's this?" Sakura leaned down toward the chair Souma had sat in, picking up a small bag. "There's something inside…_oh!_"

To her credit, Sakura dropped to the floor, lunging after whatever it was that had come leaping out of the bag, long and snake-like. She grappled with it, holding onto it until finally, with a defeated _"meep!_" it gave up, clutched in her arms.

Syaoran and Kurogane stood over her, staring down at it. "What _is _it?"

"It's…furry," she offered. Between her hands, a strange creature wreathed. Its body was long and thin, covered with the soft, grayish fur of a ferret, but it had a tiny, pointed head with tiny, pointed ears…almost like a fox.

"That's a pipe fox!" Seoul bounced down the stairs, landing on Kurogane's head. "It's used for spying – oldest trick in the book!"

"Give it me," Kurogane said. "I'll snap its neck."

The pipe fox looked at Sakura imploringly, two small, watery eyes begging silently to spare its life. She hugged it close to her breast, shaking her head vehemently.

"It's not his fault if Yuko told him to spy on us!"

The pipe fox looked up at them and shook its head vigorously in agreement.

"I don't know if we can trust it…" Kurogane glared down at it; it cowered and slid around Sakura's neck, quivering against her, and her eyes – kind and gentle – suddenly flashed with a fierce determination.

"_Nobody _is to harm him."

Startled, they all fell silent as she stood up, patting off her dress. "He's our newest guest, and we're all going to be nice to him. If Fai gave me a second chance, we can give him one, too."

Tears the size of dew drops flowed from the pipe fox's eyes; his little body unwrapped and rubbed against her cheek adoringly. Kurogane glanced at Syaoran; the boy's eyes had narrowed with a spark of jealousy.

"Uh oh!" Seoul hopped onto Syaoran. "Looks like you've got competition!"

* * *

The pipe fox turned out to be harmless; it had no interest in spying and even less on leaving Sakura's side. It had fallen so completely in love with its savior that at times Kurogane was sure, if he just squinted hard enough, he'd see little hearts floating in the air above it as it lay draped across her shoulders while she prepared dinner.

Night came; from the second floor he could see the river, the lights of the boats twinkling as they carried people out of the city. Fai still hadn't returned, and despite their best efforts to remain optimistic, they had all stayed up, huddled downstairs next to the fire.

Syaoran held the evening paper, frowning over it. "It says here that Ingary won last night's battle…"

Kurogane's dream flashed in his mind again. He snorted in derision. "Only fools would believe such a lie."

Syaoran closed the paper, tossing it into the fire. "It's stuffy in here. I'm going to open a window…"

Larg hopped up, shaking her head. "I don't think that's a good idea! If Yuko hasn't heard back from the pipe fox, she might have sent more men to try and find you –"

"Yea." Syaoran's voice was suddenly hard. "She did."

He had opened the window; Kurogane looked out and saw men – black and armored, just like the magicked creatures the (former) Witch of the Waste had used – were materializing in the courtyard below.

Sakura sprang up. "Those men don't belong to Yuko – Syaoran, shut the window!" The glass snapped shut so firmly it nearly shattered. She turned to them, her voice panicked, but her eyes burned with that sudden fire Kurogane had glimpsed earlier. "Those men are servants of a wizard named Fei Wang Reed – Kurogane, he's the one who cursed me and made me into the Witch of the Waste."

He stood up, ready to go and grab his sword from upstairs. "Why would that wizard be after Fai?" _How many enemies does he have! _He wanted to shout.

"I don't know." Sakura's eyes were worried.

Syaoran spoke up. "We never really started moving as much or using anywhere near as much magic to hide until the Witch – s-sorry, Sakura – began hunting him, trying to kill him."

Kurogane knew something of tactics. "Sounds like someone wanted to keep him busy and on the move," he said. It was still too big for him to grasp – a war, a curse, an enchanted witch, a contract, and now yet another powerful wizard, trying to control their movements underhandedly and attack them – the threads would converge, he hoped. It would all come together and make sense.

If not, he would die.

"I'm going out there," he declared, but just as he stepped forward, the world shook as the first of a series of bombs exploded a few houses away, sending them crashing to their knees as the house began to collapse around them.

They were under attack.

* * *

**Author's Note: Vote Pipe Fox 2012 for President. **


	4. Chapter 4

The curio fell forward, the glass shattering as it slammed into the ground. Syaoran grabbed Sakura, steadying themselves while the house shook, the pictures flung from the walls as a shiver of dust and soot settled around them. An explosion sounded close by; Kurogane looked up – the window had blown open, the kitchen covered in the fine powder of what had been the glass.

"Look after Sakura." Syaoran nodded to him, pulling her closer into his arms. "I'm going outside to see what's happening."

He wrenched open the door, stepping out into an unnaturally bright evening: the world was alight with the fires of the burning city. Soot and ashes drifted down from the sky like black snow; eerie shadows leapt from the glowing embers, the fire roaring above the high-pitched wail of more bombs crashing to the ground.

The sound of scraping metal drew his attention; outside the front door, he turned and saw them – the black, armored men – and clenched his fists with fury. Of all places and times, why were they here, chasing them, _still_?

_They're chasing us because they want us to keep moving. _The thought came to him with a sense of certainty – after all, what had he done, every time he saw them? _Run. _Even Fai had run from them, the first time they met –

_Fai. That idiot… _He was out there somewhere close, fighting against the airships above them, trying to stop the air raid from completely destroying his home town. Across the street, a building was collapsing in upon itself, consumed in flames; the heat of it was making sweat bead on his forehead.

He turned to run back inside and get his sword when the sound caught his attention, louder than the wailing of a falling bomb. Kurogane looked up and saw the plane, as if in slow motion, fall down toward the earth, just beyond their own home. He reached the doorway just in time to warn the others to brace themselves.

The first attack seemed like a mere rattling compared to this; above them, the support beams of the second floor snapped, collapsing downward and caving in toward the center. Splintered wood and bricks dropped down upon them as they were plunged into the darkness, the electricity cut off as the house rocked, destroyed. Even through the rubble, the sound of the carpet bombing reached him, the incessant wailing and the deafening explosions, drawing closer…

Kurogane heaved a ceiling beam off him and made his way to the side door, hoping to create an evacuation route. It was hard not to breathe in the air; his lungs were burning with the need for oxygen, but the smoke from the city's fires was too thick, choking him. He stumbled into the open courtyard, observing the damage: the house had buckled purely from the force of the aftershock of the airship's collision – a direct hit would kill them instantly, but regardless, the fires were building. It wouldn't be long now before the house was consumed by the flames.

He opened his mouth to call for Syaoran when he heard the whistling again, his blood freezing: it was right above him. He could see the bombs being dropped from other airships, their metallic hulls gleaming in the flames, and now he saw, falling through the smoke, the missile that would be responsible for their deaths.

The explosion was too much for his ears to handle; a stifling silence wrapped itself around him as he was thrown against the side of the house, gasping. As his hearing came back (first he could hear the crackling of burning wood, then the roar of the airships engines), he waited to feel his clothes catch fire, or perhaps the nothingness that comes with death. Instead, he became aware of an ache in his body and the light, delicate sensation of a feather brushing against his cheek, blown away by the wind. Red eyes opened in disbelief: there, in the courtyard, a bomb had just had its impact stopped against the bricks, its complete detonation halted by the magnificent creature that clung to it.

"_Fai!_"

Fai smiled, his blue eyes sparkling with reassurance. The same blue wings that had twice carried him into the sky opened behind him, the feathers singed. Kurogane strode forward, his arm twitching with the desire to punch him in the face for going off on his own so goddamn _stupidly – _

He embraced him roughly, yanking him toward, feathers and all.

"You're not dead."

"Nope!"

Kurogane held him at arm's length, staring at him: Fai seemed to be in control of his form right now, but at the rate the warfare was raging, it wouldn't be long before Fai would be lost in the flames, consumed…

"You're being awfully nice, Kuro-pu." Fai's voice was muffled from where Kurogane had pulled him closer to him, his head pressed firmly against his chest. The feathers were retracting, sinking away, smoothing into clothes and skin.

"You saved us."

"I should have been here sooner." Fai looked up at him, his voice suddenly weary. "I had too many enemies tonight." His arms came up tentatively, hugging around Kurogane's waist before he pulled out of his grip, as if changing his mind. "We should get back inside to the others. Look –"

The armored men had begun making their way into the courtyard from the front of the house. The two of them ran toward the side door, just managing to shut it into the warped, broken frame.

"Master Fai!" From the floor, Syaoran looked up, his voice relieved. Sakura was pressed firmly below him; the boy had protected her with his own body during the explosion and Sakura had, in turn, protected the pipe fox and Larg below her.

Fai ducked under a broken pipe and made his way through the wreckage; Seoul had fallen to the floor, next to the hearth. A brick had her pinned by an ear. Fai freed her, pulling her close as he dusted off her white fur, kissing her nose.

"There, there," he coaxed. "It's okay, Seoul."

Seoul's eyes filled with tears. "This is awful, Fai! Is there anything we can do to make it stop?"

"Yes. I'm going to try." He placed her gently back down and stood up to meet the hard, unwavering gaze of Kurogane. Fai frowned.

"You're going to try and stop me from going back, aren't you?"

"You don't need to protect us."

"Yes, I do." Fai stared back at him, equally as stubborn. "Those men won't be able to get in here – my spell is too strong for them, so don't go back outside. I'll be back, Kuro-tan – don't worry."

Kurogane stepped forward until he could rest a heavy hand on Fai's shoulder. "Why are you doing this? This isn't your war – you didn't want to fight for the king, yet you've been fighting all this time. This isn't your responsibility. Stay here."

Fai reached up, his fingers resting lightly on Kurogane's hand before he pulled himself away. "This _is _my responsibility…but I'm sorry, I don't have time now. I have to go."

"_Fai _–"

The sound of a bird taking flight drowned out his words. The feathers reappeared faster than he could process, wings had unfurled, and with a sudden burst of speed, Fai had moved through the broken home, sailing out the door and into the wind.

Just before the door shut, Kurogane caught a glimpse of the armored men outside, waiting.

Furious, he rushed to the door, yanking it open; the men rushed forward, steely blades raised –

He slammed it shut, cursing at everything, and switched the doorknob to yellow. When he opened the door again, he looked out into the meadow through a steady rain. Massive smoke clouds clustered in the air, blocking out the starlight. In the distance, his hometown burned in fires distinct even at this distance.

Something flashed, catching his eye; he squinted, just able to make out the bomb carrier as it erupted into flames, explosions tearing through the engine and into the hull. Around it, a swarm of the insect hybrids, no bigger than small, black dots, were moving, hurling themselves at something that was caught in a fiery blast on top of the airship, its jaws pulling back in rage and pain –

_"FAI!"_

It was no use at this distance. He watched, helpless, as the aircraft crashed into the ground, exploding in a display of yellow and orange.

"Syaoran! Get Sakura and the others – we're going outside!"

"Outside?" Syaoran looked up at him as he back through the door, the color wheel switching now to the Waste. "Where are we going?"

"We're moving."

Seoul shook herself, a little cloud of ash rising up from her fur. "But Kurogane, there's nowhere to go!"

"Listen, you." He picked it up by its ears and stared at it, determined. "If we keep the interior of the castle here, Fai is going to keep trying to protect what's left of the city. How can we move the interior?"

"You can't!" She kicked her legs at him. "Only Fai can!"

"Then how do I get rid of it all together?"

Seoul looked at him as he set her back down. Little wrinkles appeared in her forehead as she thought. "Part of my contract is that wherever I'm at, so is the moving castle. If I leave…I think the house will collapse."

"And Fai will know?"

"Fai can sense my magic, so, yes. But this is a bad idea!"

"Perfect." He scooped her up and set her on his shoulder. "Everyone – out. _Now._"

Syaoran pulled Sakura to her feet, slipping a hand around her waist to support her. Her ankle appeared badly injured from the fall, blood soaking her shoe as she limped toward the door. Larg remained in her arms, the pipe fox firmly wrapped around her neck, trembling.

They made it out into the rain first, this time out into the Waste, their gazes following the smoke up through the night air. The moving castle stood before them, its wings limps from the rain.

Seoul hopped on him. "I'd better go out last. I'm not sure what will happen…"

"You just said the house would collapse!"

"I just _guessed!_"

Kurogane held her on the palm of his hand and backed up slowly until, his feet sinking into the grass, they both crossed the threshold.

There was a popping sound; through the doorway, they watched as the magic that was keeping the place together released like a spider web caught in the wind. What little had managed to remain upright now fell in upon itself entirely…but it wasn't just the interior that collapsed.

The entire castle trembled; the wings fell away, dissolving into a soft aurora that was carried away by the wind. The stairs that wound around the outside crumbled into piles of bricks as everything, in one loud, defeated groan, gave way, sinking into a giant rubble heap in the waste.

Kurogane stared on in horror.

"I was right!" Seoul leapt up onto his head, satisfied. "It _did _collapse!"

"_All _of it collapsed, you damn _rabbit!_"

"Kurogane!" Syaoran's voice drew his attention. "Look!"

He turned, expecting some new disaster to leap at him, flames and claws flashing.

Turnip came hopping up through the rain, delighted to see them back in the Waste. Kurogane gave a sigh of relief.

"Good to see you. Think you can do me a favor?"

It bounced up and down, inexhaustible and eager to help.

"Find a way to get into this house."

It began hopping around the wreckage, searching for an entrance.

"Don't worry, Sakura…" Kurogane glanced back; the girl had collapsed onto the grass, holding her ankle toward her. Syaoran slipped his cloak, now tattered from the explosions, around her shoulders. "I'll take care of you."

"I'm fine, really." She smiled disarmingly. "Please – look after Larg…"

Syaoran couldn't see it; the girl was pulling her leg away, out of his vision, but he could see where a particularly sharp section of pipe has pushed its way through the flesh of her ankle, breaking off. She was doing a good job of hiding the pain she was in.

Kurogane began stripping away the collapsed siding from the house with renewed urgency; more airships, reinforcements, were drifting through the smoke in a lazy descent toward the city in the distance. Turnip's insistent _plunk_ing caused him to look up; the scarecrow had found a hole in the siding to get them in to the remains of the castle.

"Syaoran, this way!" He barked. The boy scrambled up, trying to help Sakura, but still she shied away from him, her face turning white as she sucked in her breath.

The scarecrow bounced over, _plunk_ing down between the two of them, and with one, fluid motion, managed to collect her without protest into its stick arms, hopping her into the meadow house. Syaoran stared in disbelief, moving only after Larg head butted him in his back.

A thick drop of water landed on Seoul's head. "Kurogane, the roof is leaking! I don't like it!"

"At least the roof isn't on _fire_," he growled.

She leapt down, huffing at him in disapproval. "We should have stayed put in the city! Fai could have protected us!"

"No, he couldn't." The image of Fai, caught in the fire and surrounded by the enemy, flashed in his mind. "He can't even protect himself."

They all fell silent, listening to the rumbling of distant explosions.

"Seoul." Kurogane crouched down until they were nose-to-nose. "Or Mokona – whatever you are, I need your help. I want you to make this the new interior. Move the castle….take us to where Fai is."

Seoul's ears fell down, resting on the floor. "I can't," she said quietly. "Fai and I made the contract – I move the castle for _him_."

"Then make a contract with me."

"Kurogane –" Syaoran began to protest, but he raised his hand, cutting him off. Seoul looked at him, and the little red jewel on her forehead seemed to gleam.

"Are you sure?"

"I don't have any magic," he answered. "I need you. My wish is for you to move the castle and take us to Fai – what do I need to pay?"

Seoul seemed to be thinking to herself, as if listening to a voice only she could hear, when at last she answered.

"Your arm."

He sighed; he'd left the sword upstairs back in the city, which had collapsed. He wouldn't be able to get it now, otherwise he would have gladly cut the limb off.

"Syaoran – do you have a knife?"

Sakura gasped. Syaoran put a hand on her shoulder, shaking his head. "I won't let you do this. We can all pay a portion of the price –"

"This is _my _wish." He turned a sharp gaze on the boy, silencing him.

Seoul shook her head. "You don't need to cut it off. All you have to do is agree to the contract – you'll trade your arm for me to take you to Fai." And then, quietly, she added, "I wish you wouldn't, Kurogane."

He nodded. "Sorry, creampuff…I've made my decision – move this castle."

Mokona began to glow in a familiar way, lifting into the air. Light moved around, stretching into soft, white wings that unfurled, covering them. The air shimmed around them, like ribbons of different colored light swirling in a current of magic, rainbows in a dark world. Kurogane glanced down; the same magic circle that Fai had used was below them now, glowing with the same light, as the room began to shake.

Everything stirred, and the castle began to reform – much, much smaller – as if Kurogane's sacrifice was only just enough to put itself back together in some tiny way. Only the room they were in suddenly lifted up, supported by two smaller legs below it; bricks, rubble, wood, all of it fell harmlessly away from them as the room rose. Kurogane stood, watching in amazement as the magic moved around them, putting the new castle together. He touched his left arm tentatively, confirming his suspicion: he couldn't feel it. He'd been trying to move his fingers with no success; he'd given up all use of the thing. It might as well have not been attached to him at all.

_If I can save him, it'll be worth it, _he thought. With a jolt, the new castle shook off the remainder of the old, emerging from the squalor into the open air, its legs dashing forward beneath them. Seoul continued to remain floating above them, glowing with outstretched wings, the light still swirling around them as they raced through the Waste and the rain toward where Kurogane had seen the airship – with Fai on top of it – crash.

"Nice job!" Kurogane grinned a little; the air was rushing past him. For the first time, he felt actually useful, as if he had done something right…especially since it involved magic.

Syaoran stood next to him; the new interior of the castle lacked a roof and had a large hole in the bottom of the floor through which they could watch their progress; Turnip was leaping in front of them, eagerly leading the way. "Imagine if you had given her something else." The boy shuddered. "I wonder what Fai traded to get such a huge castle that could take him anywhere, always – look what you did just for a one-way trip."

He gripped his useless arm a little tighter to himself, frowning. "Yea," he said. "I wonder."

Behind them, Sakura lay on the floor, staring up at Seoul. "She's casting a shadow…"

Larg held onto her, following her gaze. "Eh? You're right…but it doesn't look like her."

Beneath Seoul, a shadow spread. It would have been easy to mistake the pattern for an actual shadow, but something was different about it: like Seoul, two wings were outstretched...but the shadow wasn't solid, more like a curious, ornate outline composed of swirling lines. The wings led back to the center, connecting to the body of what appeared to be a thin bird, its head raised, tail feathers, long and flowing, stretching down below it. It was like looking at the tattoo of some marvelous crane or phoenix with two sets of wings, instead of the solid shadow of what should have been Seoul.

Sakura reached out and touched it, amazed. Around her neck, the pipe fox squeaked a warning just as Larg shouted to stop.

Syaoran and Kurogane both turned as the little castle lurched violently; Sakura's eyes widened – the shadow moved, lifting off of the floor.

"Sakura – stop it!" Larg leapt up, unfastening the cloak from her shoulders. She pulled it away, throwing it over the shadow. Its inky form settled onto the cloth, and Kurogane was distinctly reminded of Fai's blue jacket with its white patterns. This wasn't quite the same – this thing seemed to have an actual _form _– but the magic emanating from it was stronger than anything else he remembered feeling.

The strain was too much for Seoul; whatever it was that she had just lost, her wings fluttered as she fell, crying out. Syaoran dove to catch her just as her wings dissolved into feathers; the castle's legs gave out, buckling as it began to disintegrate. They were high up in the Waste now – too high up along the cliff face to find a safe place to stop – and the castle was losing steam.

"I can't – hold it!" Sakura threw her body over the cloak; the shadow was trying to lift away from the material and escape into the open air.

"Syaoran – help her!" He called; the wind was picking up as the castle gave a great lurch, teetering on the edge of the cliff; the sides had fallen away in chunks of rotted wood, and now, without protection, they were buffeted by the force of the gale.

Syaoran moved quickly and helped to hold it down, pinning it. Seoul gave a tired sigh and fell, unconscious, on top of the cloak.

The floor groaned, creaking, and split. The last thing Kurogane saw, as the half of the plank he was on slipped over the edge of the rock face, down toward the darkness of the valley below, was Sakura and Syaoran looking up with matching expressions of shock, reaching out to stop him from falling away from them.

* * *

He didn't know how long he'd been unconscious, but when he awoke, it seemed that dawn wasn't that far off. The earliest rays of the sun had yet to light the sky, but a dark gray, the color of spent charcoal, had filled the sky. It might have just been the smoke and the fires, still burning, but Kurogane felt certain that in another hour or so, dawn would burst through and bring light to the horrors of the previous evening.

He pushed himself upright with his good hand, wincing; some of the clutter had fallen with him, helping to break his fall.

"You okay?"

He turned; Larg was pushing itself up from under a particularly stubborn bit of metal siding, shaking its ears. The blue gem in its forehead gleamed as it hopped over.

"No," he answered truthfully. "I'm not doing so great."

Kurogane stared up at the smoke-choked sky, watching the winds work to scatter the stuff to the four corners of the world. He sighed and felt a weariness settle over him – he'd tried, he really had…but he had failed. He'd given up the use of his arm to get to Fai, and here he sat, somewhere in the bottom of the Waste, while Fai was…could be…

"Is he dead?" His throat felt unusually tight.

Larg looked up at him, and without answering his question, said, "I can take you to him."

Kurogane glanced down at him. "What do you want? My other arm?"

Larg shook his head. "No. You paid the price – it's not your fault about what happened. We can't reach him _here…_" Larg hopped into his lap. "But Seoul doesn't just travel from place to place, you know."

No, he didn't know. Kurogane waited for him to go on, his heart suddenly beating faster.

Larg continued. "She can move through space…_and _time."

A familiar blue light began to glow in the corner of his vision; the earring was emitting a faint, weak light that stretched out, pointing forward. Kurogane followed it with his gaze to the side of the cliff…

…where the door of the castle had fallen down, landing up right. The color wheel above it was gone; all that remained was the bent, broken frame, but it stood there all the same, waiting for someone to turn the handle.

He rose and walked through the rubble, opening the door. Inside, neither heat nor cold touched him: only darkness, a darkness that stretched on, endless and blacker than anything he had ever experienced or imagined possible. He put his good hand through experimentally; the image wavered, as if being distorted by the very fabric of the universe.

Larg hopped behind him, then up onto his shoulder. "You don't have to go," he offered.

"I trust Seoul." She wouldn't lead him into harm's way…not intentionally, anyways. Kurogane resolutely stepped through the doorway and was swallowed by the darkness.

* * *

It was like walking underwater; there was nothing to step on, no air to breathe, and yet his lungs didn't seem to cry out for oxygen. The darkness extended forever and for no time at all until, in the distance, the hazy, watercolor image of some world he couldn't quite see yet appeared. Slowly it came into focus with the shimmery, silver light, and then his feet touched hard wood, and the path he trod to get to this place was gone.

He stood in a room he remembered, only now it was filled. Moonlight cascaded through the open window of the house in the meadow. A table stood in front of the window, filled with the busy happenings of a busy mind. A half-full coffee cup, a pile of books, notes – even a scrap of paper with a rough outline of a distinctly familiar magic circle – quills and ink pots cluttered the surface. His eyes swept over them, preoccupied, but the earring glowed again, pointing him insistently toward the front door.

Kurogane opened it, puzzled for a moment – he had _thought _this was the meadow, but something was different…_the flowers, _he realized. The meadow was now only soft grasses – the world of color and magic had yet to take root here. He stepped outside, down the steps, his feet sinking into the dirt as he walked.

A meteor shower was happening; stars were falling down from the sky, like diamonds raining down from the heavens. This, too, he could appreciate as magic – each star that fell crashed and exploded into a million little rainbows of light, glittering and bursting with color.

A particularly bright one collided with a lake in the distance, the light refracting off the waters and spreading out with a special brilliance. For a moment, Kurogane could make out the form of someone – a young, teenage boy – walking along the river. He wore a pair of brown breeches that he appeared to have laced up in a hurry, as if he had just been woken up by the light of the meteor shower and rushed outside to watch it, not bothering to put a shirt on. Kurogane might have mistaken him for a girl if not for his flat chest; his blonde hair was long, down to his midwaist: Fai.

"This is…Fai's past?"

Larg said nothing, only staring ahead.

Brilliant blue eyes were laughing; the boy turned suddenly, his hair flowing out behind him in the breeze, lifting away. In the starlight, Kurogane could see something he had never seen on Fai before: the same inky pattern that Sakura had inadvertently freed from Mokona, splashed across his back, the tattoo of a bird rearing in flight. Kurogane searched his mind, his blood racing through his veins – he'd once carried Fai, wholly naked, halfway up a flight of steps: no such tattoo had been on him them.

The boy took off running, whooping (and fake whistling), before he suddenly fell forward, as if tripping over something. The young Fai looked down in the grass, surprised, then suddenly bashful; he had tripped over something too small for Kurogane to see, something that was now venting its displeasure at him for interrupting its view of the starfall…

Fai crouched down in the same familiar way Kurogane was used to, resting on the tips of his toes, speaking with whatever was hidden down in the grass…and then a light began to grow, spreading. White wings began to unfurl, and a small thing with long, white ears was rising into the air, opening its mouth, as Fai's tattoo lifted away, off of his back…

The muck around Kurogane's ankles clung to him a little tighter, and suddenly, before he realized what was happening, he was sinking, being swallowed back up by the darkness –

"_FAI!" _

In the distance, the boy looked up suddenly, his eyes wide with shock. Seoul, equally puzzled, sat in his palms, the two of them looking at him across time itself.

The earring shattered.

"_FAI!" _He shouted again, louder. "_MOKONA! _It's _KUROGANE!_" No, it didn't matter; they didn't know who he was yet. They stared at him, as if looking at some mad, crazed dream. He sucked in air, struggling against the shadows that were pulling him back into the dark. "Find me in the future – I – _will – _save you!"

He didn't know if they heard him or not; the darkness rushed in, cutting them off from him. Larg clung to his shoulder, pointing him in what he could only assume was the right direction in a place with no ceilings or floors, a place without time itself…

The door appeared again, dawn leaking through it. Kurogane pushed through, back out into the Waste, and stopped, sucking in his breath.

Fai was there…or, at least, what was left of him.

A massive creature of feathers, black from the soot of the fires and its own blood, stood, unmoving, unbreathing.

"Fai?" Kurogane walked toward it until he was close enough to smell the burned flesh. He reached up with his working arm and pushed the feathers tenderly away from his face; Fai's eyes, blank and expressionless, stared ahead of him, unseeing. "You've been waiting for me, all this time…" He almost wanted to laugh – that would be like the Wizard Fai he knew; he made one terrible decision, years and years ago, and had waited ever since for the one person who had promised to save him from himself. At what point had Fai found him? Had we waited, just for that day in the city, sensing the Witch of the Waste nearby, to finally meet him in that alley? He must have found him long before that – Fai had replicated his room perfectly, after all. It was only a brief moment, but the wizard would have seen the dark curse across his chest…he would have known he couldn't meet Kurogane until after it had happened, or risk altering time. What would that have felt like, stopping yourself from saving someone from a terrible curse – someone you didn't know yet, but someone who had appeared, once in a fit of screaming, in the middle of a meteor shower – who had told him to wait for him, that he would save him, without knowing what he meant…thinking it all a strange dream, and then, suddenly, discovering that very person, tucked away in a little city in Ingary, polishing a sword and keeping to himself…

Kurogane shook his head and leaned forward, kissing him. No response or recognition greeted him; Fai was lost somewhere inside himself, still waiting even now.

Kurogane moved around him, slipping under a wing. "Can you take us to Seoul?"

The creature didn't answer, but its wings moved slowly, labored by the sheer effort of opening, as it flew up, into the air. Larg sat in Kurogane's lap where the man was, his legs neatly crossed over him, a small smile on his face. He looked up at him questionably.

"I was just thinking that Fai's always flying me off to someplace," he said, his words carried away by the wind. "I was wondering if someday I'll return the favor."

Dawn had broken completely by the time they found the last bit of the castle still moving along the countryside. All that was left was a single wooden plank on top of two legs – hardly a castle, really…but it was all they had. The scarecrow _plunk_ed along in front of it, determined not to lose it again, as Syaoran and Sakura lay curled together, asleep, securely pinning the cloak with the tattoo on it under them. The pipe fox and Seoul rested between them.

Syaoran awoke just as Fai landed; the tremendous bird fell forward, its feathers carried away by the wind as if melting away from itself. When they were gone, Fai, human and unconscious, lay on the plank, Kurogane and Larg by his side.

Sakura awoke next, her voice catching. "…Is he dead?"

"No." Kurogane gave her a small smile, the best he could manage. "He's going to be fine."

Kurogane rose and walked over to them; Syaoran helped Sakura to stand and move off the cloak; the pipe fox came with her, eager to be nowhere near Kurogane. Only Seoul remained, fast asleep in the middle of it.

He gave the cloak a good yank, sending her flying.

"Hey!" She woke up with a start, shaking her head. "What was that for?"

Red eyes flashed as he grinned. "Wake up, pork bun. We have a business arrangement to keep."

"Eh?" Seoul looked up at him, down at the patterned cloak in his hand, and understood. She tried to keep her composure and remain business-like, but her excitement overcame her as she trembled with anticipation, her little feet pattering with delight on the wood.

"If I give this back to Fai," he held up the cloak, pointing at the tattoo, "Will your contract end?"

"Yes!" She squeaked.

Kurogane held it up, staring at the tattoo. "This is what he traded to you, in return for the castle. This was what was stopping him from becoming a monster."

She nodded. "It's the seal of his people – it was holding back the dark magic inside him. It was the most valuable thing he had…"

"Well, better give it back to him, then." He walked over to him and knelt. Carefully, he pulled Fai over so that he was lying on his back, brushing his bangs out of his face. "You're really something, you know that? Why would you give up something so important…" He sighed. He'd have to give him a solid punch…later. With one hand, Kurogane pulled the cloak protectively over him; the tattoo sunk through the fabric, down into Fai, and he was sure – if he ever got to see the wizard with his clothes off again – that he would see the tattoo splashed across his back, the bird rising just between his shoulder blades, its wings opening across his arms, tail feathers tracing down toward his…well….

Before he could think of it any further, he gasped; the sunlight was pouring from behind him, and now he could see his own shadow on the ground – a shadow with a massive pair of dark, black wings in front of him, almost large enough to swallow him, wings that were now curling inward, shrinking, and finally, lifting away entirely…

He turned, shouting for Seoul, but she had already risen into the air. They all stared in shock: her eyes were open – _huge!_ – and she spread her wings joyously, rainbows swirling around her.

"Mokona can finally go where _she _wants to go!"

"Mokona?" Syaoran blinked. "If she's calling herself that again, she must be separating from Larg…"

"I'm sorry, Larg," Sakura held out her hands. He hopped over. "You must be sad."

"Eh?" Larg grinned, and his own eyes opened _wide_. "Seoul is big on traveling – I prefer to stay home and drink!"

The pipe fox slid down from around her neck, nodding approval.

The last they saw of her, before she disappeared in a flash of light, was the few feathers that fell away as she beat her wings, soaring up into the sky.

Behind him, Fai gasped.

Kurogane turned back to him, waiting. The wizard groaned, still unconscious, but sweat now clung to his forehead: he was coming to.

"Thank goodness…he's okay!" Sakura threw her arms around Syaoran, hugging him in her happiness. The boy stammered out something incoherent and managed to work up the courage to hug her back.

Larg gave him an appreciative pat. "You did it, Kurogane! You reversed their contract and broke your curse – nice job! But listen," it added. "You might want to hold on."  
"Hold on?"

Larg pointed down at the moving platform.

The plank they were on lurched sideways suddenly, the legs beneath it collapsing. Seoul was gone…and so was her magic.

"Grab Sakura!"

Syaoran flung the two of them to the ground as the platform dropped to the earth, sliding along the steep incline toward the valley of the Waste. Kurogane leaned protectively over Fai's still unconscious form, pulling him close with his working arm. The platform was picking up speed as it rushed forward, down toward the earth, careening at full tilt to go over the edge –

The scarecrow suddenly leapt over them, its face knotted in what Kurogane was certain was determination, digging its stick into the dirt. The pressure from the platform slammed it forward, but still it fought to slow them down, the earth and rocks cutting up its wood as it dug further and further, resisting the speed, just as the cliff face ended –

They were nearly flown forward with the force of the stop, but stop it did...almost. The plank slipped over the edge; for a moment, death seemed to have won once more, but the two edges of the platform caught on opposite sides of the rock face, suspending them over the world.

The scarecrow had been reduced to a slight stump with a rumpled coat and top hat. Kurogane reached over and grabbed him, holding him. It looked up at him, defeated and near-death, but still smiling, as if it couldn't be happier than to die in the service of someone it loved.

He shook his head sadly at it. It was almost as bad as Fai. _Almost._

"I'll get you a new stick," he promised. It continued to smile up at him, but Kurogane could feel it dying in his arms – _how _he knew it was dying, he wasn't sure; it wasn't a living thing to begin with, but nevertheless, it felt as though something (magic, perhaps) was draining away and out of it. It grew more lifeless by the second. No, he wouldn't get a new stick for it in time. He looked down at it with pity; it had been with him since the beginning. When he had been at his most frustrated, his most hopeless, it had always come, eager to help.

"Thank you," he told it. "For everything." Kurogane leaned down, and without hesitating, kissed its forehead.

Nothing happened at first, but suddenly he felt as if he was holding onto something hot, something with life rushing through it – something that was wreathing and transforming and _gasping, _human and wide-eyed, in his arms.

"F-Fai!"

"Thank you, Kurogane!" The Fai-double threw his arms around his neck, kissing him back, passionate. Syaoran and Sakura watched on, amazed.

Kurogane pushed him away, not sure what was happening. He looked back down at the rumpled, unconscious Fai on the ground, still in his black pants and white shirt, and then at _this _Fai, who was clean, wearing a suit of dark blue with swirling white patterns that formed snowflakes interlaced together.

The new Fai stood up, brushing his clothes off. He looked at Kurogane and smiled warmly. "You broke my spell."

"Your…spell?"

Larg spoke up. "Yep! I recognize that spell. It's a particularly cruel one…only a kiss from your true love will break it, right?"

The second Fai nodded. "Yes, that's right."

Kurogane froze. "Wait a second…"

"I was about to die." The twin leaned down again, kissing his forehead. "You saved my life, Kurogane. But…I'm _not _Fai."

"Then who are you?"

"My name is Yuui. Fai is my twin. My good-for-nothing, lazy, roustabout twin." His words were harsh, but his tone was affectionate and playful. "I'm going to guess that he's told none of you anything about himself and you've never heard about me until now."

They all nodded, including the pipe fox, who was happy to be included in the conversation.

Yuui smiled and looked on at his brother, who had yet to stir. "Then I guess none of you know that he's a prince, either."

Kurogane spluttered, but Syaoran grew thoughtful. "That would explain why he's so lazy…"

Yuui grinned. "Nope! That's just his personality." He walked over to his brother and knelt by him, touching him tenderly. "He was born first, which made him first in line for the throne. Our father died; our uncle, a man named Ashura, raised us, ruling as the king regent, but that meant that as soon as he came of age, he would have to take over. That was too much for him – he ran away before he turned thirteen."

Kurogane guessed at his age, adding up the math. "So…what was that, ten years ago? Fifteen?"

Yuui blinked at him. "Oh, he didn't tell you _that, _either – no, we come from a long line of wizards. Because of our magic, we age _much _more slowly than anyone else. I'd say it was…oh, I don't know…" He peered up into the sky, thoughtful. "Sixty years ago?"  
"_Sixty years!"_

"He's a prince _and _a cradle-robber." Larg shook his head in disapproval.

Yuui went on. "King Ashura knew what Fai wanted and let him go; he wanted him to be happy, and _I _wanted him to be happy – and, unlike my brother, I didn't mind ruling a country." He reached down and touched his brother's pulse; reassured by its steady beating, he pressed on. "But then, about six months ago, two things happened. The first was that neither myself nor Ashura could sense where Fai was – he always put an effort into keeping on the move. That was what he wanted, but we could still vaguely sense that he was in Ingary, alive and well…but then, it was as if he doubled all of his efforts. He was either moving so much that we couldn't sense him…or he was dead." A dark shadow crossed Yuui's face. "Ashura was devastated; he feared that he had made a terrible decision, that if he had stopped Fai all those years ago, maybe he wouldn't have died – we were convinced that, if neither of us could sense him, he was gone. Of course, we didn't know we were dealing with a magic far greater than our own…" He gave a pointed look at Larg.

Larg grinned. "Yuko sure is something!"

"Yuko?" Sakura looked up, curious.

Lard nodded. "Seoul makes contracts on behalf of Yuko – the magic of the castle was hers."

Syaoran grew thoughtful. "We started moving a lot after we met the Witch of the Waste…about half a year ago. That's when Fai had Mokona working _all _of the time, changing the doors, taking us to new places."

Yuui nodded, then continued. "I was determined to find out if my brother was dead or alive, so I left Celes, leaving the kingship to Ashura once again."

"_Celes?_" Syaoran stared at him with open amazement. "You mean…the country we've been at war with? Why would Ashura attack Ingary –" He stopped; Yuui had held up his hand.

"In Ingary, I discovered that Fai was alive…but not before I also discovered a powerful wizard who put that curse on me."

Sakura let out her breath. "Fei Wang," she whispered. "He did the same to me…"

"Our uncle couldn't feel either of us now – both his nephews had gone to Ingary and seemingly died. He would move heaven and earth for us – he would do _anything _to protect us. He asked the king of your country, Clow Reed, for answers – but the king had none. Ashura didn't believe him; devastated, he vowed he would rip up all of Ingary if it meant finding either of us, if there was a chance to save us if we were still alive. We wizards, in Celes, have a darker side inside of us…" He looked up at Kurogane, frowning. "But you know that by now too, don't you? In any event…I traveled a lot, even though I was enchanted – I had no need for food or sleep, and because the curse was so strong, I was able to get into places that were heavily enchanted – like Clow Reed's palace, for instance – and learn many things… I discovered that Fei Wang, the man who had worked to ruin our lives, was known for two things: his tremendous power…and his rivalry with a certain Witch."

Kurogane began to understand. "Yuko?"

"Yes." Yuui smiled at him. "By enchanting a witch to chase Fai and cursing me, he arranged it so that Ashura would wage a war against Ingary in an effort to attack Clow Reed and Yuko in the place it would hurt them most: their conscience. It didn't matter that people would be killed – he used my uncle's grief to let the darkness inside him take over and drive him to start, in his rage and sorrow, this senseless war."

Syaoran hugged Sakura close. "What sort of vile person…"

"There are all kinds of vile people in this world," Yuui said. "Wherever Fei Wang is now, someday he will meet his end. But there are good, wonderful people, too." He looked up at Kurogane, his eyes filled with emotion.

Between them, Fai groaned. His brow knit as he struggled up from unconsciousness, blue eyes opening slowly upon the world.

"…What's all this…?" His voice was weak. He blinked hazily up at Kurogane, then at his brother. "Oh, hi, Yuui," he said, his tone suggesting that he thought he was dreaming, "Long time, no see…"

Kurogane rolled his eyes. "You, shut up," he said, and leaned down, kissing him fiercely. Fai's arms came up, wrapping around his neck, as he allowed Kurogane to pull him into his lap. They stared at each other, hardly believing that they were both alive and well, and Kurogane found himself blurting out the first stupid thing that came to his mind.

"I love you."

Fai let out a cry of delight, his eyes wide and awake now, and sent him crashing down backward onto the plank, kissing his mouth, his forehead, his ear – everywhere – before finally giving up and hugging him with all his limbs.

Sakura glanced up at Yuui; the prince looked on, his smile having fallen away into a frown. He stared at the two of them, silent and thoughtful. She reached out and touched him gently, offering him a smile. "You'll go back now, won't you?"

"Yes," he said. She watched the immense effort it cost him to drag his eyes away from the pair of them and give her a wan smile in return. "I'll return to Ashura and explain everything. We will do our best to make amends to Ingary…it won't be enough, but we will do as much as can."

"And you see how Kurogane feels…?" She asked, her voice hesitant.

Yuui grimaced. "Yes, I do. But when I'm through…" He turned back to Fai and Kurogane; Fai had buried his face in the nook of Kurogane's arm, holding on to him as if never intending to let him go. "I'll return. I've heard it said that the only constant thing in this world is a fickle heart," he whispered. "I hope it's true."

Behind them, Larg was staring down into the floor; a little blue light was shining out of the jewel on his forehead, creating a small hologram of a certain witch. She looked up at him, displeased.

"And what do _you _want?" She blew smoke out, angry. "I lost my best drinking partner and now you'd better be contacting me to apologize for just running out like that!"

"Aw, you're a liar – Doumeki's your best drinking partner, and you know it!" Larg moved to reveal the image behind him; Fai and Kurogane had sat up, their arms around one another. Sakura and Syaoran had likewise shyly wound their fingers together, holding hands, and the pipe fox had experimentally begun to poke at Yuui, who, in turn, pet its head with his index finger, promptly causing it to fall in love with him.

"I see." Yuko's fury melted into a smile. "So then everything worked out. When they showed up at the palace, I knew we were close to ending the war…at least, I beat Clow to it," she grinned. "A happy ending. That's a rare thing, you know, Larg."

"_Almost_ happy," he corrected, "But it will be in just a sec: I've got two people here who want to make a wish!"

Larg hopped aside; the group looked up, surprised to find the image of Yuko beaming at them.

"Twins!" She said. "It's so good to see you together. Clow has been waiting for this day anxiously." Her warm voice suddenly became no-nonsense, all-business. "Now: pay up."

"You're not one for formalities," Yuui said graciously, rising.

"She's a _real _–"

"What was that, Fai?" Yuko snapped.

"…Lovely woman!"

"What are you both doing?" Kurogane stood up quickly, alarmed. They both gave him identical smiles.

"We're making a contract," Fai answered.

Kurogane took a swift step forward. "The hell you are. It took me all this time to break this one –"

Yuui stopped him, shaking his head. "No, no – this one is alright. We promise."

The twins lifted their hands to their eyes; Kurogane once again felt the shifting pull of magic in the air and watched as the blue from each one of their eyes seemed to lift away until, each with a small sapphire in hand, they turned to him, smiling below similar gazes: each twin now had a single, blue eye…and a single, golden one.

They tossed the gems to Larg, who promptly swallowed them, and then Yuko held them up in the image. "They've each traded half of their magic...for your arm," she explained.

"Me?" Kurogane's fingers twitched; he was about to yell at her to give it back to them, but she was already gone. He turned his anger toward Fai. "Why would you do something like that –"

Fai rested a finger on his lips, smiling. "If I traded all of my magic, I would die."

"How did you even know –"

Yuui let out an exasperated laugh. "We're _wizards, _Kurogane. Sensing magic is something we do innately."

He sighed. Fai grinned at him wider and slipped his arms around him, hugging. "Besides…the best hugs are with two arms."

Kurogane brought his arms up – with one hand, he hugged the wizard close – as close as humanly possible – and with the other, he punched him in the head.

"Kurogane is so _mean!_" A tiny voice called.

They looked up; a white pork-bun creature came falling down from the sky, landing smartly on the platform. Fai stared at her.

"You didn't have to come back, you know. You were only gone for a minute…"

"A minute!" Seoul hopped over to him, up onto his head, and then onto Kurogane's. "I was gone for _ages! _I traveled to all kinds of different places – and times, too!" She hopped down, pointing in the general direction of Fai, Yuui, and Kurogane. "I even went to your wedding! Larg was drunk, as usual."

Yuui's eyes narrowed. "_Whose _wedding?" He hissed.

Sakura reached down and scooped Seoul up, clamping a hand over her mouth. "Oh, she's so tired from her traveling, I'll bet she's delirious!" She shot a glance at Syaoran. "Right?"

"Right," he said quickly, nodding, but Yuui was shooting a poisonous glance at his brother, who grinned back and held his hands up helplessly.

Kurogane walked over and held his hand out. Sakura understood, placing Seoul in his open palm.

She looked up at him, curious.

"I'm gonna do this _one time, _in my whole life, so here you go: thanks, pork bun." He lifted her up and gave her a short peck on the cheek.

Seoul burst into happy tears, flinging herself around his neck.

"_Hey _– get _off _me!"

"Thank you, Kurogane!" She cried, burrowing into his clothes. "I love you, too!"

* * *

It took time to rebuild the city, a task that he helped with, starting first with Tomoyo's shop. The task was made easier by a certain wizard who was particularly adept at remodeling houses, and who, out of the goodness of his heart, moved from place to place, using his magic to fix what he could. No more airships clouded the skies, and while Yuui hadn't returned yet, Kurogane had the feeling that he was biding his time, waiting for his twin – or him – to break up with each other.

But that hadn't happened; months had gone by, and finally, of her own accord, Seoul and Fai worked together to mutually fulfill their wish: to build a home that could float among the stars. The new castle came together, bit by bit, until one days a set of wings, white and massive, like a crane, spread out from its sides, and the shimmering, _clean_, castle flew up into the sky.

The new castle even had a small yard built in back; from the top balcony, Kurogane looked down, smiling. Sakura sat peacefully, reading a book, while Syaoran played a game of badminton with Larg…Kurogane frowned; the boy was _terrible. _Larg was giving him a solid beating. The pipe fox had even stayed, but Kurogane remembered the way Yuui had spoken with it in low, conspiratory tones before he left, and he was _certain, _judging by the way he kept finding it in he and Fai's room, hiding in drawers, that it taken up spying on them for its new love, ready to report the first signs of a potential break up (and no signs had happened yet, nor would). Below, he watched the pipe fox squeak in alarm, and he knew, without having to turn around, that the person who had come through the door behind him was about to slip an arm around his waist and work his way under his arm, leaning against his chest.

He did. The wind ruffled Fai's hair, lifting it away from his face, and without having to say anything at all, Kurogane leaned down and titled his head up, kissing the wizard as the castle disappeared among the clouds.

**Fin. **

* * *

**Author's Note: Phew! That was much longer than I thought it would be! For anyone who also read CLAMP's RG Veda, where Ashura-o and Ashura come from, you'll recall that the Ashura clan places seals on themselves to prevent their immensely destructive power from…well, destroying everything (and everyone). The manga's plot focuses on what happens when the remaining living Ashura (from the Yama/Shura arc of Tsubasa) has that seal removed (short answer: bad things). Since Fai was already associated with Ashura through Tsubasa, this seemed like the perfect way to throw in a little more CLAMP into this adaptation (after sneaking in the pipe fox, too!). Oh, and his tattoo really DOES look like a bird (to me, at least)! Anyways, thank you so much for reading such a lengthy fic – I hope you enjoyed it! While certain elements were changed, I tried to go scene-by-scene (and sometimes, even dialogue-by-dialogue) to capture what the Tsubasa characters would do and make this unique to them; I didn't just want to plug their names into a novelization of the movie, but make something truly adaptive (so now you can go watch the movie and see what I changed, and where!) Please let me know what you thought, and if you ever get the chance, go read Diana Jones' **_**Howl's Moving Castle. **_**It doesn't have any of the plot holes that Miyazaki's film does (and it took all my imaginative faculties to close those plot holes and connect some of the narratives!) and it's a short, wonderful book. Thank you again everyone! –TB Bacchus (PS: Thanks Nyaa! Saw that and laughed a ton; all fixed now!)  
**


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